Lone Wolf Read online

  First off, as I said. I’m a nullhead, a non-decker. (If I had the tech, training, and inclination to punch deck, everything would be different.) That limits what I can do in the Matrix. Just because some of the Cutters soldiers think I’m a techno-wonk, that doesn’t mean I’m actually any good at it. It’s just that I look fragging brilliant next to their computer-illiteracy. About all I’m good for is logging onto UOL and posting argumentative messages, however. The Cutters do have their own deckers, of course—a couple working for Musen the accountant, one or two in Fahd’s biz development empire, and another one or two working directly for Blake. I can’t prove it, but I strongly suspect a couple of them sometimes monitor what I do when I’m online. No surprise. Blake would be a fool not to keep watch on a communication channel like that.

  So, filing reports and receiving orders over the net isn’t smart. Physical meets sound dangerous—and sometimes they are—but not if you do them right. First point: whoever’s on the other end of the meet—Cat today—I don’t talk to them about what’s going down. They’re not my conduit, just my postman.

  On the way over to the CB, I “dictated” my report inside my head, dumping it onto a datachip slotted into one of my jacks. Before I went into the kissaten, I pulled the chip and stashed it in a small carrier cylinder not much bigger than a toothpick, and I’ve got it palmed now. My orders are on a similar chip stashed somewhere on Cat’s person. All we’ve got to do is make the switch.

  Isn’t this dangerous? Well, yeah, but some risks you’ve just got to take. Also, I’ve done some things to cover myself. First off, the chip holding my report and the one with my orders are disguised as “jolts,” those illegal simsense-analogs that you can slot like a datasoft but that give you a thirty-minute high before erasing themselves. Somebody would have to know just what they were looking for to recognize that my chips contain anything other than simsense files. Then they’d have to break the security encoding and sidestep a wiz little virus that erases all data at the slightest provocation. When I get my orders, I slot the chip and download the data directly into my headware, erasing the chip at the same time. No, not just erase: overwrite with ones, then overwrite with zeroes, then with ones again. The big-domes in the Star’s technical research division assure me that nothing can pull traces of data off the chip after that. (I suppose somebody could read the data right out of my headware memory using SQUIDs, but that’s a real high-tech process and how likely is it that I’d sit still for it? Null.)

  So that’s my cover, and it’s a fragging good one. Sure, I’m the one came up with it, but that’s still the objective opinion of one of the Star’s best undercover assets. If the Cutters ever catch me at one of these meets, my cover is that I’m feeding the monkey on my back—a secret jolt habit. Why don’t I buy my chips through the Cutters’ own distribution network? Because I don’t want the higher-ups to know I’ve got a weakness, chummer. You scan that, don’t you? It’s a good rationalization, based on one of the great principles of (meta)human psychology. Don’t try to convince people you're innocent. It’s much easier to make them believe you’re guilty of a lesser offense. (It also gives the soldiers doing the pinch a little extra incentive to let me be. They know something I don’t want made public, and you’re just not (meta)human if you don’t relish having leverage against someone.)

  My second espresso arrives, and I knock that one back too. This time I toss the empty to the barista. He catches it, but doesn’t seem to know what to do with it. I lean close to Cat, drape an arm round her shoulder, and grab a quick feel of her rockets. She stiffens up and shakes herself free, but by that time the chip carrier with my report is down her cleavage. She’s a better actor than I expected. The face she turns to me is white and tight-lipped with fury. But the glint of amusement is still in those impossibly violet eyes, and a little more than amusement maybe. Who knows, maybe she remembers that weekend at the Mayflower too? Stranger things have happened.

  Now I stroke her thigh, and she grabs my hand in a surprisingly tight grip, forcing it away from her. I feel something tiny and hard pushed into my hand, and I quickly palm it. Exchange made, and the show we’re putting on is guaranteed to have everyone looking away uncomfortably.

  “Fragging ice-maiden, aren’t you, slitch?” I snarl. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

  “I’d rather jam with a devil rat,” she hisses back. Nice line.

  “Could be arranged,” I tell her, which draws from her the faintest hint of a wink. Interesting. I’d like to pursue the matter, but now’s not the time, here’s not the place. Which is too fragging bad. I swing off the chair and jander away. I see the counterman trying to get up the juice to tell me I owe him money, so I shoot back over my shoulder, “It’s on her tab,” and I’m out onto the street. A Lone Star bike cop cruises by slowly, giving me the once-over. I grin at him, pull back the sides of my jacket to show I’m not carrying heat. He scowls and rides on.

  Surprise, surprise, it’s not raining, and there’s even a patch of blue sky about the size of my thumbnail. All in all, this day’s not shaping up so bad.

  5

  By the time I’ve got my bike out of hock from the Washington Athletic Club parkade and ridden to my doss on Northeast Sixtieth Street in Ravenna—a convenient few blocks from the Cutters’ safe house—I've slotted the chip Cat passed me, downloaded the contents, and scanned them. Didn’t take me long. Predictably, my orders are: “Keep your head down and keep reporting.” (Am I psychic or what?) There’s nothing specific the Star wants me to watch for, and if they know about anything strange coming up, they don’t see fit to warn me. I mentally trigger the utility that tripleoverwrites and wipes the chip, and I eject it from my jack. I don’t even bother to use the chip carrier, just let it fall out onto the road as I ride.

  In contrast, my report—the one that got to nestle between Cat’s cushions, lucky fragging chip—should give whoever’s authorized to read it something to think about. First there’s a rundown on the Sioux assault rifle scam. (Paco came through with the background on that, and was slotted off that it wasn’t anything deep and dark I could use against Ranger. It turns out the war boss had loaned money and assets to Musen to swing the deal. Why didn’t the biz honcho have his own assets to invest? Well, there hangs a tale, priyatei, but one that doesn’t matter much to me or my superiors.) Then there’s an update on the decision to approach the Ancients for restitution. If the Star has an agent as high up in the Ancients as I am in the Cutters, they can manipulate this situation in whatever nasty direction their little hearts desire.

  And then there’s a warning about raids on the Eighty-Eights, and ditto if the Star’s got a deep-cover agent there.

  Then comes the fun stuff, basically a two-megapulse rant about bureaucracies and communication breakdowns and how they can frag up the best policies and strategies. All “for the good of the force,” of course, but mainly driven by my own crankiness at almost getting geeked by my “brothers in arms” in the FRT squads. Eminently understandable, I figure.

  And that about covers the level of communication I have with my superiors. Sometimes I feel kind of like a fire-and-forget weapon. The Star went to a frag of a lot of trouble setting up my background when they transferred me from Milwaukee. (Oh, sure, I’d done undercover work before— lots of undercover work—and I’m fragging good at it, but I’d never done anything this long-term and deep. Frag, joining the ruling cadre of a major first-tier gang. It still loosens my bowels to think about it.)

  I still don’t know how they built my story so deep and so impenetrable. All I know is that the first couple of months I was scared drekless that some underpaid, overworked, under-motivated, hung-over Lone Star clerk had missed something vital that would end up getting me scragged—I couldn’t help remembering that the Star’s computer system had once sent me three statements for overdue parking tickets in Milwaukee ... in the sum of 0.00. But it’s been almost eighteen months now and, if anything, my cover only seems more bulletproof,
but I still sometimes wake up in a cold sweat waiting for the Mexican frag-up.

  After all that effort—the Star’s and mine—I’m in place and making my reports, but my superiors sometimes don’t seem to pay much attention. I think it’s only twice that I’ve actually been told to pay attention to something specific, and that just doesn’t seem like the most efficient use of me as a resource. Of course, during the two times I’m talking about, the drek was fragging near running down my legs while I was trying to ferret out what the Star wanted. From a theoretical standpoint, they should give me more guidance. But, from a personal point of view, I’m much happier this way, and much more likely to live to collect my pension.

  To hell with that drek anyway. Chewing it through now’s probably just a way of distracting myself from the fact that the blue sky I saw over downtown has turned out to be as dependable as a politician’s promise and that the hard rain’s started up again. By the time I reach Ravenna and find a good place for my bike, I’m soaked to the fragging skin. My apartment’s in a building called the Wenonah, a low-rise that’s about twice as old as I am. It used to be painted, I think, but the solvent they call rain in Seattle has seen to that. The building’s just bare concrete now, stained and pitted and streaked with pigeon-drek. (Query: With so many other species going out forever, how the frag do those flying rats people call pigeons manage to hang on? End of digression.) I jander up the stairs to the front door, push it open.

  The Wenonah used to be a “security building,” and the notice to that effect is still bolted to the wall over what used to be the intercom panel. Of course, the panel’s been stripped, lo, these many months now, with all the electronic hardware peeled out and probably sold. Doesn’t matter worth a drek anyway. About the same time the intercom panel went west, somebody took a shotgun and blew the locking mechanism out of the door. The property management company responsible for the place keeps promising they’ll replace it Real Soon Now.

  I swing up the stairs, superstitiously stepping around the stain where one of my erstwhile neighbors bled out after a minor difference of opinion with his girlfriend. Making my way down the dark and narrow hallway toward the back, I hear music coming from inside my doss even before I get close enough to see that the door’s open a crack. My H & K’s in my hand and I’m reaching for the wire, moving forward as quiet as a ghost, ready to make my grand entrance and deliver a three-round lesson on the sanctity of private property.

  But then I listen to the music rather than just hear it, and I know who’s inside my place. The song—and I use the word loosely—is “Scrag ’em All” by Darwin’s Bastards, one of the more in-your-face bands on the trog-rock scene. If you didn’t know this drek was supposed to be music, you’d probably mistake “Scrag ’em All” for the noise of street repairs around the sprawl.

  I engage the safety on the H & K, but don’t slip it back in the holster. Can’t be too friendly here. Then I stride up to my door, push it gently with a boot, and step to the side. Just in case. I don’t really expect trouble, but now’s not the time to start any bad habits.

  As the door swings open, the only offensive force that comes through the opening is more of Darwin’s Bastards, now grinding their way into a trog-rock cover of “Stairway to Heaven”. Scary stuff. In some ways, a burst of autofire would have been more comforting. But I don’t let my face show any reaction as I move into the doorway.

  The first thing I see is drek strewn everywhere—over the floor, over what little furniture there is, and heaped in the corner. It looks like someone’s tossed the place or maybe set off a grenade in the middle of the room. Basically just the way I left it.

  Someone’s sprawled in my single armchair—formerly the home of a pile of laundry that’s been pushed onto the floor. Bart is his name—Big Bad Bart to his friends—“that trog bastard” to everyone else (the overwhelming majority). He’s a big, bloated ork standing a touch over two meters and massing one thirty-five if he’s a gram. He’s got a big sagging gut that looks like it’s sitting on his lap, and jowls big and heavy enough to stop a punch to his larynx. Sure, Bart’s a tub of lard, and it would be easy to dismiss him because of it. But I’ve seen him move, and he’s stronger and faster on his feet than his flabby bulk would make you think.

  He smiles up at me from the chair, and I’m glad I haven’t eaten. Bart’s one of those orks who seems to consider tooth decay a badge of honor. His protruding fangs are yellowed and chipped, and the rest of his teeth are black. His breath could knock over a devil rat at five paces.

  And since we’re on the topic of Bart’s odious personal habits, let’s talk about Darwin’s Bastards. I’m egalitarian and open-minded when it comes to musical preference. Even though I’d probably rather listen to a jet engine spooling up than sit through an album by DB or Trollgate, if Bart wants to listen to that poisonous trash, it’s chill with me. My kick is that he likes to inflict it on the world, He’s always got his Sony ChipMan deck hanging from his belt, but instead of listening to the so-called “music” through earphones, trode rig, or datajack, he sets the deck to narrowcast to a pair of Bose Micro Vox speakers built into the rigid shoulder-boards of his jacket. With the volume usually cranked up to brain-melting, trying to carry on a conversation with the slag turns into an exercise in lip-reading.

  Big Bad Bart and I aren't on the best of terms. Never have been, and recent developments seem to be conspiring to make sure we never will be. The fat pig apparently hoop-kissed his way up the hierarchy of Cutters soldiers until he became one of Ranger’s more trusted lieutenants. When I showed up in the sprawl, my faked background marking me as a real “comer” in the gang scene, Bart decided I was a threat to him and all his progress. He never made any moves against me, though; by the time he’d figured things out, I’d already ingratiated myself with enough of the big bosses to make fragging me too big a risk. But he sure as frag nuzzled up even closer to Ranger’s hoop.

  That’s ancient history. Now? If Bart was once concerned that I was angling to be Ranger’s protege, it doesn’t seem to be bothering him anymore. Don’t get me wrong. Ranger would never confess that I’d whipped his hoop in the council meeting. But drek like that spreads through the gang faster than gossip in a retirement-village bridge club.

  It’ll also have made the rounds that I’m boss-man Blake’s fair-haired boy at the moment, and that—probably—protects me from harassment and direct retribution. Unless it can be disguised as something else, of course.

  So, I snarl at Bart, “What the frag do you want?” My H & K’s by my side, handshaking happily with the wire in my brain. The tech reassures me just how fast I could bring the gun up and squeeze the trigger if I have to, and estimates how much of Bart would be blown into the upholstery of my armchair.

  Bart smiles, and I can imagine the wave of halitosis rolling slowly across the room toward me. “War council,” he says—or that’s what I think he says.

  “Yeah?” I ask. “So what you doing here, priyatel?” The word’s Russian for “friend,” but I know my tone changes the meaning to something very different. “Never heard of a fragging phone?”

  He shrugs, and his jowls wobble. Darwin’s Bastards are screaming something about being a rock and not rolling, and the accompaniment sounds like a car being disassembled by an autocannon. The wire informs me that, yes, I could blow the ChipMan off his belt—probably—without doing more than lacerating the rolls of fat he calls a waist. Tempting idea, but maybe I’ll save it for a later date. “Ranger wanted me to deliver the invitation in person,” he says. He looks at the watch on a sausage-sized finger. “You’re gonna be late.” And then he grins, like that’s been the idea all along.

  “Then what you sitting on your hoop for?” I demand. “Let's go.”

  6

  We ride the couple of blocks from the Wenonah to the Cutters’ place by the cemetery. Bart’s hog—a 2052 Gaz-Niki White Eagle—is almost ten years newer than my Harley Scorpion, but its owner apparently takes no more care of it than he d
oes of himself. The bloated ork cruises along behind me, the clattering blast of the Eagle’s badly tuned engine fitting perfectly with the percussion part of DB’s “Bloody Day Coming”. We park the bikes out back, then jander into the safe house.

  The “war council” is going down in the basement, and it’s already underway when we swing in the door. There are a dozen or so soldiers there—like Paco, all young, all tough. I’ve worked with most of them before, and get on well with the majority of those. Seeing a couple of fists raised in greeting, I shoot back a chill grin. Ranger’s up front—not giving the briefing, surprisingly—and the look he gives me would strip paint. All the seats are taken, so I lean against the room’s back wall. Bart follows me in and, wonder of wonders, kills the soundtrack.

  It’s a tough little biff named Kirsten who’s giving the briefing. She’s using a portable projection display with a subnotebook computer, throwing an image of the screen display up on the far wall. At the moment, the display is showing a map of the Hyundai pier, a segment of the docks down around Pier 42 where that weird multicorp firefight went down last November. The cross-hairs cursor is settled on one of the “temporary” warehouses across Marginal Way from the piers, right under the Alaskan Way viaduct. (They were “temporary” when the city built them to handle an interim undercapacity in 2034 or so, but the city never replaced them with anything better.) I know the place she’s rattling on about. It’s right in the shadow of the Kingdome, a depot and sometime meeting place for the triad called the Eighty-Eights.