Psychotrope

09:46:18 PST

(12:46:18 EST)

Jackpoint: Toronto, United Canadian and American States

Dark Father stared at the creature that waited for him below, in the private conversation pit. The thing was a strange blend of two different paranormal creatures. It had the squat, heavily muscled body of a gargoyle, as well as that creature's large leathery wings, pointed ears, forehead horn, and jutting muzzle. But its flesh was covered in the green and black scales of a mimic snake, and a forked tongue slithered in and out of its hinged jaw. Its neck was just a little too long, and its beady eyes were serpentlike slits under heavy brows.

The combination was probably intended to be doubly unsettling. Had the creature actually existed in nature, its victims wouldn't know whether they would be constricted to death and then swallowed whole, or dive-bombed from above and raked with talons and claws.

In fact, the creature was a construct within the Matrix, an icon representing a computer decker. But even though it was unreal, composed only of pixels of light, it had the capacity to be deadly, just the same.

Dark Father descended a spiral staircase made of floating white rectangles. When he reached the bottom and stepped onto the green marbled floor of the conversation pit, a metallic boom echoed overhead. He looked up and saw that the sub-processing unit had been sealed off with what looked like a gigantic metal hatch, octagonal in shape. Eight black pillars had appeared to hold it in place. Jagged blue bolts of electricity rose one after the other between the pillars, crackling as they wavered their way from floor to ceiling.

Dark Father recognized the program: a form of barrier IC named Jacob's Ladder. It was intended to guarantee ab solute privacy to the two occupants of this SPU, one of several secure nodes on the Virtual Meetings host, Hidden away in a remote corner of the Seattle telecommunications grid, Virtual Meetings' black pyramid contained a number of private iconferencing sites, making it a favorite meeting place for shadowrunners.

And for blackmailers.

The gargoyle leaned against a sundial that was set into the middle of the conversation pit's floor. Glowing white numerals announcing the time of day encircled its rim, patterns of white against the sun dial's black marbled finish. They crawled with painful slowness around the rim; seconds always seemed slower in the Matrix, where words and deeds were accomplished with the speed of thought. The conversation pit was theirs until ten a.m.-ample time for them to conclude their meeting.

Dark Father stared coldly at the gargoyle. "Well? Here I am." He stood with hands folded in front of him, an ebon-black skeleton with yellowed eyeballs, wearing a tall top hat and a black suit that hung loosely upon its bones. A pale white hangman's noose, knotted around his neck like a tie, was a stark contrast to bones and cloth so dark that they were difficult to see against the backdrop of inky blackness that lay beyond the sub-processing unit.

The gargoyle-who went by the handle Serpens in Machina-flashed Dark Father a quick smile, revealing needle-sharp teeth. "There you are," he said. "So that's what you look like." The gargoyle shifted his wings slightly and Dark Father heard the creak of leather and smelled the dry muskiness of snake. The persona icon was high-rez enough to include aural and olfactory components, in addition to its visual and tactile presence. Serpens in Machina must have some mighty state-of-the-art equipment. He was not someone to be trifled with.

But Dark Father already knew that. He had come prepared.

"Have you arranged for the credit transfer?" the gargoyle asked.

Dark Father nodded. "Nine hundred thousand nuyen is waiting in an account in the Zurich-Orbital Gemeinschaft Bank. All you need to access it is the passcode."

"Wrong," the gargoyle said. "You'll be the one accessing it. I have no intention of getting hit with whatever IC you've loaded the account with. At precisely noon today, Pacific Standard Time, you will transfer the money in three equal portions into the accounts of three organizations: the Ork Rights Committee Seattle chapter; VVA-MOS-Victims of Violence Against Metahumans and Other Species; and the MetaRights League of Boston."

Dark Father shuddered at the list. Neo-anarehists, metahuman agitators, and terrorists. In the real world, his lip curled at putting nuyen in their coffers.

"And your take?" he asked.

"Nada," the gargoyle answered. "I'm like Robin Hood. Take from the rich, give to the poor…"

"You're targeting the wrong person," Dark Father countered.

"You are rich, Winston Griffith III."

Dark Father's eyes narrowed at the use of his real name. He was at a disadvantage; despite his best efforts he had been unable to learn the real-world identity of Serpens in Machina. He was not the world's hottest decker, but he did have the very best hardware and programs that nuyen could buy. He had every electronic edge available. And still he had failed.

"I am wealthy," Dark Father agreed. "But I'm already a philanthropist, so there's no need to blackmail me. It was my charitable donations that enabled the establishment of three separate Informed Parenting clinics in one of Toronto's poorest neighborhoods. The orks and trolls of the Vaughn warrens now have free birth control and counseling, regardless of their SIN status or…"

"Free abortions and sterilization, you mean."

Dark Father bristled. "Those are the most effective methods, yes. Orks and trolls aren't the most intelligent creatures. You can't expect them to remember to show up every six months for another implant needle. And with the average litter comprising four or more offspring, the pressures on Toronto's social systems are tremendous, not to mention the personal hardships faced by the young ork mother who finds herself with too many mouths to feed when she's still only in her teens."

"Bulldrek," the gargoyle said sharply. "Your clinics are nothing more than a Human Nation front. And you're a known HN sympathizer, despite your… personal background."

The gargoyle snorted. It cocked its bullet-shaped head to one side. "Ironic, isn't it? If you weren't a member of one of Toronto's wealthiest families, you'd be on the streets like the rest of us. Without your inheritance to buffer you from the unpleasantness of the world, you'd be a target for every bounty hunter in UCAS. Like the one who tried to gun you down a year ago."

Despite himself, Dark Father shuddered. How could Serpens in Machina have found out about that as well? Winston had been feeding, late at night in the hospital morgue, when his unknown assailant had surprised him. The gunman's comments had made it clear that he was a bounty hunter and that he knew exactly what Winston was up to. He had taken a moment to gloat at catching Winston in the act before unloading an entire magazine into Winston's chest.

The surgeons who saved Winston's life that night were his personal physicians. They knew that their hospital's wealthy patron was a ghoul-and were paid top nuyen to keep that knowledge a secret. They sympathized with Winston's plight-they were the ones who, over the years, had helped him to pass for human by performing delicate laser surgery to correct his reduced vision and treating his allergies to sunlight with gene therapy. They were discreet and professional, and had no reason to betray the trust Winston placed in them. No reason to bite the hand that fed them a steady diet of nuyen.

The hospital's security staff were also in the clear. The woman and man who had been on duty the night Winston was shot had taken down the gunman quickly and efficiently. Theirs had been a clean kill-the bounty hunter had not lived to spill Winston's secrets to them. And it was doubtful that hospital security had seen anything incriminating. There had been no vidcam monitors in the morgue itself, and Winston had been careful to choose as his meal a corpse that had already undergone an autopsy. The scalpel cuts he made in the body would surely have been mistaken for wounds made when the body was dissected.

He prided himself on his foresight and tact. Not only was he fastidious in his eating habits but he also caused minimal upset by feeding only on bodies already slated for cremation. Their relatives would never be distressed by the discovery of missing body parts. Winston was nothing like those other ghouls, the wild ones who desecrated graves by tearing them open to feed on the buried dead, or the even more despicable ones who fed on the living. He could pass for normal-and not just because his dark skin hid the grayish tinge that infection with the Krieger strain of the HMHVV virus had produced, or because his expensive cologne masked the odor of rot that occasionally arose when he perspired. He was normal, unlike those hulking, misshapen metas who dared to call themselves men.

If he had died at the hands of a bounty hunter, the world would have known his secret. That fear was what had enabled Winston to fight his way back from beyond the brink of death that night when the doctors were forced-twice- to shock his heart back into beating again. He couldn't stand the thought of his colleagues and friends in Human Nation laughing at him behind his dead back. Only if he remained alive could he continue to suppress the news of what he really was.

There had been no identification on the gunman who'd shot Winston that night; the man's retinal scans came up SINless and dataless. All Winston knew about him was that he was human. For the past year Winston had been haunted by the question of his would-be assassin's identity and how he'd learned that Winston was a ghoul. And now it seemed that the bounty hunter had left behind information on his target-information that had fallen into Serpens in Machina's electronic lap.

That had to be how the blackmailer had learned Winston's secret. Perhaps Serpens in Machina also knew who the bounty hunter was-and who had revealed Winston's secret to him.

"What do you know about her?" Dark Father asked, deliberately obscuring the bounty hunter's gender.

The gargoyle grinned. "Ah. Nice try. About him, you mean. I know who tipped off the bounty hunter, for one thing. You were betrayed, Winston Griffith III, by someone you trust. But that information will cost you extra. For now, there is the initial payment of nine hundred thousand nuyen to be dealt with. That will guarantee my silence. Satisfying your curiosity will cost extra."

"It makes no sense to blackmail me," Dark Father repeated. "I already make extensive donations, not only to Informed Parenting but also to a number of other charitable organizations."

"Not to the ones on my list," the gargoyle hissed angrily. "I think it's an appropriate punishment for a candidate for the Human Nation executive council to be forced to donate to meta-rights organizations, don't you? And especially appropriate, considering your own metatype."

Dark Father met this outburst with anger. "You have no proof-"

"Yes, I do."

The gargoyle's eyes took on a satisfied gleam. Dark Father braced himself for the worst.

"Four years ago, I heard of a wiz little program developed in Tir Tairngire," the gargoyle said. "A biolink passkey that could distinguish the metatype of a decker by the distinctive pattern of his or her neural interface signals. The null-brainer who was posting the info claimed the program flagged elves as friendlies and suppressed black IC that would otherwise slag them.

"It was nonsense, of course. One neural signal is the same as any other, and the Tir sysops used IC that was just as harsh on any elven deckers who trespassed upon their data as it was on any other metatype. But the posting wasn't entirely off-slot. Mitsuhama Computer Technologies' Portland subsidiary had been working on some gray IC that would frag up the Reticular-Activation System override of an intruding decker's cyberdeck. After the IC hit, instead of merely suppressing the sensory signals from the decker's body, the RAS override would eliminate them altogether. At the same time, the IC rewrote the RAS programming that prevented the decker's meat bod from acting upon the neural signals that allow a decker to 'move' in the Matrix. Instead of remaining still, the decker's meat bod would thrash about as it responded to the commands the brain was giving it. The object was to induce the decker to suffer injuries by slamming into walls, falling down staircases, running out into traffic-"

"What has this to do with my… with me?" Dark Father asked.

The gargoyle grinned. "MCT Portland's project never did amount to anything. Too many glitches. But there was an interesting spin-off-although it never did prove to have any economic value. Because the program sampled the decker's RAS override signal, it could determine his height and weight. From these gross physical measurements, metatype could be established."

Dark Father listened quietly, fascinated despite himself. Ghouls stood about the same height as humans and massed the same number of kilos. The program that Serpens in Machina was talking about couldn't have…

It was as if the gargoyle read his mind.

"It's the claws that gave you away," he said.

"Claws!" Dark Father laughed out loud. "Ridiculous. If we were meeting in the flesh, you would notice that my nails are neatly trimmed."

"That may be true," the gargoyle said. "And I'm sure you have an excellent manicurist-one who keeps her mouth shut about the length and hardness of your nails. But you should have told that to whoever you hired to cook the ASIST interface on your deck. The RAS overdrive contains a sub-program, designed to prevent you from injuring yourself by balling your hand into a fist. And that application only makes sense if you have claws."

"That's hardly conclusive," Dark Father said. "For example, it could also be used by a dragon in human form."

"Perhaps," the gargoyle answered. Its tongue slithered in and out, wetting its lips. "But a dragon wouldn't be very acceptable to the Human Nation either, would it? They wouldn't accept a dragon as president of UCAS-what makes you think they'd accept one on their oh-so-pure executive council? They'd be even more horrified to find that they've got a ghoul in their midst."

"They wouldn't believe you if you told them."

"But I could sow the seeds of doubt. And then they'd start wondering why their fellow philanthropist had no body hair whatsoever-not even eyebrows or eyelashes. Depilation is hardly the fashion trend it once was, you know."

"There are a number of medical conditions that can cause-"

"Cause what?" the gargoyle snapped. "A craving to eat human flesh?"

In the real world, Dark Father's flesh-and-blood body shivered. This had already gone too far. He'd only let the meeting go on this long in order to find out how much the other decker knew. Too much, it seemed. Serpens in Machina had to be stopped. Once that was done, Dark Father could continue looking into the mystery of the sudden appearance of the bounty hunter on his own, just as he had been doing for the past twelve months.

"What gets me is how you can be so prejudiced against your own kind," the gargoyle continued. "The metas who come to the Informed Parenthood clinics are-"

"They're not my own kind," Dark Father answered angrily. "And I'm no racist. I'm helping them. You couldn't possibly know the horror of giving birth to a monstrous, misshapen child…" He winced, and bit back the rest of what he was going to say. He'd already given away too much.

"So that's it." The gargoyle's persona was emotion-responsive. The voice coming from the other decker's icon was hushed, thoughtful. The gargoyle's forehead was puckered into a concerned frown below its horn. "You see yourself as a monster. I'm truly sorry for you."

Dark Father's gut clenched. If there was one thing he hated, it was pity. He'd seen it in the eyes of the instructors at the secluded boarding school that he was sent to as a teen, after infection with the HMHVV virus had transformed him into a ghoul. He had heard it in the hushed tones of his personal physicians-had even felt it in the falsely affectionate embrace of his former wife after he told her his shameful secret. And now he saw it in the face of a complete stranger-one who wanted to ruin his only chance at acceptance by forcing him to donate to charities that were the antithesis of everything that Dark Father believed in. He couldn't stand the gargoyle's smirking sympathy a nanosecond longer…

Dark Father initiated his killjoy utility-a program designed to knock another decker out while leaving his cyberdeck up and running. A length of chain with a cuff at one end and a heavy metal ball at the other appeared in his hands. Whirling it once in a tight circle over his head, Dark Father launched it at the other decker. It sailed toward the gargoyle, bounced once off the marble floor of the conversation pit, and then the cuff snapped shut around the gargoyle's scaly ankle.

Serpens in Machina hissed in alarm and jerked his foot, but the utility was already doing its job. It stunned the other decker, slowing the gargoyle's response time to the point where Dark Father was able to activate a second program-a smart frame that combined a browse, evaluate, and track utility in one. It appeared beside him in the form of a German shepherd with fur of metallic silver and eyes that emitted twin tracking lasers. These locked briefly on Serpens in Machina, and then the police dog was bounding up the stairs. It paused at the lightninglike barrier IC that sealed off the SPU. Then the dog cocked its leg, used a stream of light to sear open a hole in the barrier, and leaped through the empty space.

"That was a null-brain move," the gargoyle snapped with a derisive glare. "If anything happens to me, the data I've collected will be downloaded into every-"

Dark Father didn't even listen to the rest. Already he was savoring his victory. The other decker probably assumed that Dark Father had sent a simple track utility to seek out Serpens in Machina's jackpoint so that he could be attacked in the real world. But the smart frame was performing an entirely different task. It would not only hunt down Serpens in Machina but browse his cyberdeck for the data on Dark Father-then duplicate itself and spread out through the Matrix, hunting down every copy of that data and destroying it. Nothing incriminating would be left-as long as Dark Father could keep the other decker busy for the few seconds the police dog required to complete its work.

It looked like Dark Father was going to have his work cut out for him. The other decker leaned down and seized the cuff around his ankle, then wrenched it apart, freeing himself from the ball and chain. As the utility crashed, the chain exploded into shards that skittered across the marble floor. Then the gargoyle attacked.

Leathery wings enfolded Dark Father, pinning him in their grip as claws scrabbled at his chest. The gargoyle's eyes were pale white pits of fury and its mouth gaped wide to show rows of needle-sharp teeth. So perfect was the detailing of the other decker's persona that Dark Father could hear the shrill scrape of the gargoyle's claws as they raked the chest of his persona and could smell the creature's rotted-flesh breath. One or the other must have been the simsense component of a killjoy utility. Dark Father could feel his real-world body tiring as the program battered at his senses, partially stunning him.

These details were supposed to frighten Dark Father into making a mistake, into letting the other decker get the upper hand. But Dark Father didn't scare that easily. When the gargoyle suddenly thrust forward with its horn, initiating an attack utility, Dark Father quickly countered with a program of his own, a shield utility that billowed from his open mouth like a cloud of fine white ash. It settled on his bones and clothes, turning them from ebon black to ghoulish gray and rendering him momentarily impervious to tactile contact.

The gargoyle stumbled as its arms and wings suddenly closed on empty air. Dark Father stepped quickly aside and regarded the other decker from his new position behind him before closing again to combat range. Before the other decker could react he hurled his own attack utility at the gargoyle. He slipped off his hangman's noose necktie and whipped it around the gargoyle's neck, then cinched it shut by yanking on the rope. The gargoyle persona flickered and jerked as the program sent a jolt of electricity back into the other decker's body, messing up the deck's neural interfaces. Dark Father smiled.

But the other decker was tougher than Dark Father had estimated. In a blink, the gargoyle restored his icon and slipped free of the noose. His scaly hands grabbed for Dark Father's bony chest. This time, despite the shield utility that still coated Dark Father like powdery snow, the claws sank home. Dark Father felt a sudden sharp stab of pain in his real world body. This was not merely mental shock that he was feeling. This was actual, physical pain. Whatever utility the gargoyle was using, it seemed to be equivalent to lethal black IC. At last, Serpens in Machina had succeeded in frightening him.

"Attacking me was stupid," the gargoyle hissed. Its tongue lashed out, flickering briefly against Dark Father's cheek as the other decker tasted his victory. "You should have just paid the nine hundred thousand nuyen. I would have kept quiet about your dirty little secret. I would have kept my word. But now the second part of my offer is rescinded. I'm no longer interested in selling you the name of the person who led the bounty hunter to you. And now I'm going to have to do you some serious damage, to buy myself the time to deal with that track program you hit me with. You'd better pray that your ghoul body is able to take it."

"I…" It was getting difficult for Dark Father to speak, even though the words he wanted to utter were no more than neural signals in his brain, rather than actual movements of his flesh-and-blood lips. His thoughts were growing fuzzy.

At the same time, Dark Father's brain grasped at rational straws. It didn't make sense for Serpens in Machina to kill him. Not before the charities he'd picked had gotten their blackmail nuyen. But maybe the other decker had given up on collecting from Dark Father. He had no way of knowing that the nuyen really were on file at the Zurich-Orbital Gemeinschaft Bank, even though Dark Father had transferred the credit to the account only for show, never really intending to make the credit transfer.

Pain lanced through his body a second time. "Please," he whispered. "Don't kill me. Let's talk. I'll double the amount of nuyen…"

"No deal."

The bottom of the gargoyle's leathery wing brushed across the sundial at the center of the conversation pit. Glowing white numbers displayed the local time: 9:46:59

PST. The hour of Dark Father's folly-the moment when he'd dared to go against a more talented decker and lost- was at hand.

Then the gargoyle, the spiral staircase, and the pillars that framed the conversation pit that was the SPU exploded into pixels of light that flew away like confetti and disappeared…