January 8, 2073, Soi 6 Seattle

The front of the bar was filled with girls in neon coloured outfits, with bright smiles and groping fingers. The bar patrons especially liked the plexiglass dancefloor above the bar. There were even mirrors on the bar.

In the back of the bar, were rooms one could take the bargirls. The music's ambient bass could be heard beyond the sounds of sex.

The room was uncomfortably hot, its rouge walls, with bright bedsheets and too many stuffed pillows. Mr Johnson sat in the only workable wicker chair in the room next to an and table. He sipped his vodka martini.

The TriD went dead, the newscast had gone on before it could be cut off and had been broadcast around the world. A week later, everyone from Horizon talking heads to Shadowland clueless argued about who she was and if she was real. Tales and rumors heaped on top of each other created a global spectacle promised to blow over in a few months - if it was not for one fact.

Mr Johnson coughed politely and spoke up, "For those of you who do not know, a 10.4 Mt hydrogen bomb was detonated above Tenochtitlan, Aztlan 8 days ago. Out of 30,000,000 in the metropolitan area only 1% of its population survived."

Aztechnology's stock was in free-fall, Aztlan had imploded.

"What is not known is this." He showed news raw footage from a Horizon aerial long range drone after the blast. In the unmoving desolation a girl was sitting on the steps of what may have once been an office building, nothing had survived that was 3 feet above the blast. The camera zoomed in on the girl, the undeniable facial image of Pandora appeared.

Mr. Johnson looked at the assembled runners. "My client is very interested in the apprehension of this woman, preferably alive or if not in small sized pieces. With successful completion of this run we would be willing to pay you 15 million nuyen a piece and have you transported to any location on earth with the proper documentation."

Mr. Johnson picked out the olive from the glass and started to chew it. He chewed it as if his mouth needed something to do. He swallowed.

"The sum is non-negotiable. A forward of the sum is non-negotiable. You are not the only team looking for Pandora. The less connections between myself and you the better."

He wiped his mouth on the complimentary napkin.

"Any questions?"

January 8, 2073, Soi 6 Seattle
<Music Cue: Depeche Mode – Personal Jesus>

Vice finally stopped rolling the lemon wedge back and forth across the back of his fingers, squeezed it into his club soda, and dropped it in the glass. His view of the Johnson was partially obscured by the cloud of AR windows, each showing a different bargirl’s profile, along with pictures, video, and in a lot of cases, a live feed from the club’s matrix host.

The footage of the blast down in Ten was old news. It’d been everywhere for a week, and actually confused the hired gun. He’d spent his entire childhood being taught, subtly of course, to hate Aztechnology. Army life had gone out of his way to teach him to hate Aztlan. He knew he should be happy. A part of him wanted to go re-enlist, to be the first one off the first Dragon to land on the occupied side of the Colorado River and start the reunification of Texas.

Almost 30 million Azzies were dead. Vice had been in the pool, swimming off the aftereffects of a small, private New Year’s Eve party when he’d gotten the news from a neighbor.

Now, 8 days later, someone wanted to pay him 15 million nuyen to find, and potentially kill the woman who’d slain the Great Satan. He should have been conflicted. His homeland’s hated enemy, and one of the lurking great evils of the Sixth World was gone, blotted from the map by a barefoot brunette in a disappointingly baggy dress. He didn’t think she was done, and that meant eventually she’d turn a weapon on Ares, and potentially someone he cared about. That meant she had to be stopped.

He flashed back to the girl with the spiked black hair with the green tips and her cute little pout when, after snaking her hand down the front of his slacks, she’d been thwarted by the shorts of his form fitting body armor. She hadn’t been thwarted for long, but that wasn’t the point.

Someone else, who saw the life of his corporation flashing before his eyes, clearly agreed. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be willing to pay over 15 million to see Pandora stopped.

The Johnson faded into translucence, along with the wall behind him, revealing the contours of two of the staff joygirls entertaining in what they thought was a private room.

Vice abruptly set aside his surroundings, returning his attention to the man with the martini who’s just offered him a ridiculous amount of money to hunt the most wanted woman in the world.

“First, where would you like to take delivery of the target, and second, what else can you tell us about the weapon?�

The rampant sound, colour and smell coursing through the gaudy room saturated Spooky's keen senses and his already taxed attention ambled off on a merry jaunt into the astral while the Johnson's video played. Forcing himself to pay attention wasn't easy... all these guys were the same. Money and Conditions. Usually too little of the former and plenty of the latter. Fortunately, his job at these meetings didn't involve much thought... he was there to enforce their privacy, nothing more.

As the TriD came to its somewhat startling conclusion and the offer was made, Spooky was startled to suddenly realize that he was well and truly hooked. Ever since her first announcement the woman had fascinated him. His thoughts had oft turned to her in the past week.

Debating the ethics of her cause with himself, he had trusted no one else to such thoughts, he could see where she might actually have a valid argument... afterall, the corps were virtually untouchable, until now, and with that power often came a level of corruption that only the truly powerful could ever attain. That said, she might also be nothing more than another evil cancer seeking to eradicate societal structure for no other reason than to see entropy in action.

Either way she would be worth finding out more about. If she was a force of balance at work on a global scale, she might just appreciate a helping hand, and if she fell into the second category, then who was he to argue with 15,000,000 Nuyen.

Aware that the hook to join this venture was probably too well set for any in the group to decline, Spooky nevertheless remained silent... he would leave the negotiating to someone who actually liked speaking with people.

January 8, 2073, Soi 6 Seattle

The garish sounds of the club washed over Silas, to many times he'd been in one of these places, babysitting a new rising star. Tuning out the noise he focused in on the TriD, he'd seen it hundreds of times in the past week but he focused non the less.

As the girl walks into the frame he can't help but think That girl is someones daughter, someones sister. His mind starts to wander. A young girl with brown hair walks on stage and approaches a microphone, the sounds of the band starting up fill the auditorium as she starts to sing.........

Silas is suddenly very aware of the bead of sweat running down his neck, blinking twice to clear his vision and regain his focus. The Johnson could have picked somewhere a bit more comfortable to meet.....

Anymore information on Pandora herself? Known accomplices, friends, connections to any criminal organizations or corps?

Mr Johnson sipped at his drink and eyed Vice or rather the girl's hand in Vice's pocket.

"I will give you a credstick, on it will be an encrypted file. That encrypted file will contain a commlink code. Once you utilize the commlink code it will allow you one connection, we will then arrange location and time."

"The hydrogen bomb is the first Megaton level explosion since the awakening. Obviously any information on how this was accomplished would be vastly interesting to us. All we know about the explosion is that it was not magical. Unless someone has been able to duplicate radiation and EMP effects with magic, which would lead to a whole rainbow of questions."

He turned to look at Silas.

"The reliable information on Pandora is hidden under a mountain of garbage information. If you were to listen to Shadowland BBS and ShadowSEA as we have then Pandora would be some Enemy from Islamic paradise, combined with the power of an AI, and a front for well, any of the other AAA corps. In short, sir, we are hiring you to hunt Pandora down, not the other way around. These two video clips are the only solid information we have. In the words of someone from a very long ago: 'If it was easy, we would just sue them.'"

The AR swarm parts as Vice mentally shoves them to the sides. The girl with the green hair gets an extremely generous tip wired to her from a disposable commlink, which conveys his message loud and clear. It’s time for her to leave the room, and she didn’t see or hear anything.

He collects his peck on the cheek and promises to seek her out later, then waits for the dancer to leave before continuing.

“Status of the Court? She didn’t actually get into Z-O to broadcast, did she?�

Pressing the issue of compensation for discovering how Pandora’s nuke worked is quickly deemed a bad idea. Putting the money out there might taint the debate on whether to entrust an anonymous entity with that information.

January 8, 2073 - Soi 6
A bar is a bar is a bar. Sure, there are minor cosmetic differences the world over, cultural overpinnings on the basic concept, but when you cut to the core of it they were all the same. They were a place to get lost, to forget yourself. A bar was a place to down a few pints and let your miserable little existence slide away, or, to the manner of people he found himself more often than not working with, to be lost in a crowd. You could take Soi 6 and drop it brick by brick into Macau, Brazil or Hong Kong and no one would blink. You could open the same place in the Middle East, even; you'd just have to do it in a less advertised manner so that the religious police could ignore it. A bar remained a bar no matter how you dressed it.

And with the spirit of a bar in mind, Frank hadn't bothered to dress up. He had made his way amongst the neon and mirrors quietly dodging the crowds, the desperation, and the glitz, resplendent in his tight white shirt, the battered jeans, and his workman's boots. He had checked his jacket at the door, though a shirt of second-skin armor The Ray Ban's tucked into his shirt were the only nod to fashion in his attire, and even they served a function. He politely dismisses each of the women who approach him in turn, even the ones so bold as to slide close, running a hand through his unruly hair or being bolder still. He wasn't here for the women - perhaps on another day, in younger times, yes, but not today.

He hadn't been the last to join, but aside from Spooky he had been the quietest about it. He certainly hadn't brought a woman into the meet with him, even to keep up appearances. He had, however, stopped for a pint at the bar. A guy in a bar like this without a girl or a beer gets noticed in all the wrong kinds of ways.

Frank's attention during the screening of the newscast is elsewhere than the TriD. He'd seen the footage hundreds of times since its broadcast; he's seen forums analyzing it; he'd seen conspiracies and contracts flying back and forth. He'd seen enough of the video to know that the woman in it was two things: powerful and in perfect control. To brand her as unstable was a fool's gambit, because no one co-ordinates such an action without careful precision and attention to the finest of details. Such a move wasn't impulsive, though she may well want the world to believe so. It was meticulous and Machiavellian. They were being asked to deal with a world class sociopath, and part of his mind was reeling through the data he had collected, considering if fifteen million was enough to save the world. The soldier in him, of course, would have settled for less. Someone had to stand against tyranny, after all. And what was a revolutionary but a tyrant in idealistic clothes?

No, he doesn't focus on the newscast, but instead upon their would-be employer. A Johnson is a different beast than the people he is used to tendering contracts from, a creature at once more subtle and more overt. The consummate middle man, he has his fingers in many different dirty little games, but remains a step apart, yet when it comes to direct dealings he can be a brute force, wielding power as if a hammer. In this case the power came in the form of nuyen - a rather gross amount of it at that. A man who could command over one hundred million dollars to be dolled out, however calculated the terms of the contract might be, was a man not to trifle with. Many would simply accept his anonymity and focus instead on doing what they needed to get the money, but Frank was of a more cautious mindset. The man before them was not merely corporate, by the very nature of his intel and his bankroll he was someone in the top tier of the corporate world, and that meant however much he wished otherwise there would be record of him somewhere. Frank doubted it was as simple as the man being from Horizon, though he seems to have access to their intel. No, that would be too easy.

For the moment, however, Frank's attention turns to the TriD, and the new footage. He has to affect a casual detachment at seeing the aftermath of the detonation. To do otherwise would not only be unprofessional but entirely too human to be able to accept the contract in good conscience. Allowing emotion to creep in would compromise his ability to act in the moments he knew it would be needed. Instead he takes a step outside his emotions and take in the brief scene. Given the more public footage, this is a striking revelation. He had considered Pandora powerful before in the sense that she commanded power, not that she had such personal power of her own. To be in the midst of such a force, with the radiation about her no doubt intense beyond convenient measure or protection, meant that she commanded some manner of defense which was startling... unless she wasn't human at all.

When the footage stops, his eyes flicker to Vice. Whether or not he agreed with the man's fast and loose lifestyle, or in that moment that the man was indulging his sex drive during a meeting, was not a concern. Vice had served honorable time in the military, one not unlike his own save minor political differences and a squabble with the people who were given Pandora's first... gift. The man must be elated, and not just for the direction of the green haired girl's hand. But Frank knew well enough he was some manner of professional, and he was the voice Frank looked to when there was negotiating to be done.

He takes in the exchange in silence, much like Spooky, taking in the answers to the questions. Each answer, especially the one to Silas' question of affiliation, allows him to build a picture of how much exactly the Johnson may know.

She hung in the void above the burning star that was the Nexus, letting the light of it's data flows play over her exposed skin.

Here in the flow of the data was the only place she felt truly alive, sometimes when the patterns in what wasn't there revealed the pattern of The Truth to her she understood what it was like to be a God and to know everything that one desired to know the instant one desired to know it.

Her body still shackled her mind to the mortal realm however and today she must descend into it once more. Money must be earned that this wondrous realm might continue.

She wasn't really sure where she had left the body. She thought it might be in the flat above the Shadowland servers in Seattle. Had she been working on the racks there?

Wherever it was it was well defended and the data-flows were strong.

She settled back to creating the Widgets she would wield at the meet, spinning them around herself out of the pure light of the Nexus.

----

She ghosted through the club's servers laying back-doors in her wake, subverting sensors and uncovering all the secret little nooks and crannies the owners thought only they knew about. The data was probably worthless to the upcoming job but all data points had relevance to the overall pattern so she discarded nothing.

She occasionally dipped into the sim-sense streams she found, briefly revelling in emotions and sensations she would never enjoy in the flesh, but quickly tired of this. There was work to be done.

Every node in the establishment or within a 100 meters of the place was methodically subverted and analysed. Patiently she waited for Mr J and his entourage to arrive. There 'link's would contain nothing real but the lies would contain patterns.

Patterns that would reveal the Truth.


----


The little drone buzzed quietly as it hovered behind Vice's shoulder. She liked the corrupt little human for some reason and felt safer with him between her proxy and the Johnson. She occasionally liked to have it project a miniature holo of herself in her Life-support Drone onto his shoulder, the little mechanical spider often made people uncomfortable and easier for the Empathy software to read.

Today it merely projected a life size image of her avatar a little to his left. It appeared to listen intently, it's huge, shining Anime eyes unblinking and unwavering. It was odd how people automatically treated the slightly androgynous teenage girl. Long-term data indicated that it was worth an extra 3% in any negotiation.

Back in the Nexus she hung within a miniature constellation of data-points and AR windows into the meat-world and all the resources she had subverted for this meeting. Agents scurried to and fro analysing activity and compiling reports for her attention.

Suddenly, like a Galaxy condensing the lights swirled and changed.

Mr J had just revealed the name of the Target.

Like a giant Galactic Black Hole the name Pandora floated in the centre of the web, distorting it and causing it to swirl and coalesce into something else, something wonderful.

The construct twisted and distorted again when Mr J revealed his price.

Interesting.

Armed with a Negotiation Activesoft in one of her RAM widgets and a Threaded Emotion Analysis Complex Form she studied Mr J for signs of discomfort or deception. It was incredible what those tiny facial ticks could reveal about someone's real intent.

His reactions to her real team-mates and their inquiries were revealing. She waited for him to answer Vice's question about the Corporate Court.

Finally she spoke in slightly accented English.

The funds will be held in Escrow, you will pay any fees.

Furthermore 10% will be held in Escrow with a Fixer of our choice to cover expenses.

Should our team be unable to capture the subject we will be paid 25% of the agreed sum should information we supply lead you to her capture.

You will supply full medical cover in every territory that it is available up to and including DocWagon Super-Platinum level or equivalent benefits wherever available.

That should put the cat amongst the pigeons.

She and the Mega-pulses of code at her command watched the man's face to gauge his reaction to her demands.

Vice would step in after Mr J reacted and smooth over any ruffled feathers. They made a pretty good tag-team it had been her observation.

About 7% worth if the data were to be believed.

Doc Sci sat back and watched the negotiations with interest. His skills in this field were minimal at best, but it was always interesting to watch experts in their field perform their art. One could often learn something, simply through observation of skilled individuals.

While watching, however, he did not neglect his chosen role in this negotiations: psionic realm security. He would reach out with his mental energies, searching for any potential threats or eavesdroppers from that side of things.

As the reality of the negotiation began, Spooky slipped further away from the conversation. The ragged trail of his dark, scuffed, leather duster, an odd midnight blue with black fringes, churned just above the room's floor as he slowly paced around the other inhabitants... an old habit that did as much to keep him alert as it did to calm his nerves. Supple and soft, his dark leather moccasin boots, remnants of a scrap with an awakened pooch named Blackwind, muffled his tread, allowing the others to conduct their business without the distraction of squeaky rubber soles sliding against the floor. In stark contrast to his black fatigues, his bare, scarred torso lay exposed beneath the long jacket, a dress statement intended to emphasize the dual implications of his unarmed state... weaponless but still dangerous. Presence was more important than protection at most of these meets and in any case his sheer granite like mass afforded him more defense than most of his companions, armour or no.

All of his experience as a hunter of the paranormal was useful here, from the waiting to the watching. His eyes glowed softly silver beneath his everpresent Oakley Razor shades, their tint slightly reduced for the indoor setting but still shielding his eyes from view. Scanning the room, he allowed his astrally augmented vision to slide over the Johnson, as well as his companions, ensuring that nothing was amiss before returning to his ever vigilant watch over the crowded room. His keen nose likewise took in the scent of his would-be employer, marking it for any distinctive flavours. Despite years of contradicting evidence, he still almost expected Johnsons to smell like the bland, starched suits they occasionally wore, nasal chameleons fading away against the whirling chaos of smells generated by sweatlockers like this bar.

Mr. Johnson had key parts of his brain surgically modified. They were important in his job. They deadened the face. They made duplicitous thoughts hard to detect because he was incapable of conciously lying and telling the truth, making what he said true in that relativistic sense that living between the light and dark sides made.

However, patterns can still emerge. He kept to the truth. He did not seek elaboration, nor conjecture. He was giving an offer as well as he could. He was telling the truth that he saw.

"We cannot discount that she was on the habitat during the transmission. The room has been verified to be genuine to the last detail. However, I am sure you know there are ways in which such things can be artificially created."

A tell, something not being said. Something omitted.

Mr Johnson did not look at the anime avatar, instead focused on the quiet members in the room.

"The reward is non-negotiable. Once the mission has been accomplished will the details of how the financial transactions be accomplished be enacted. Our offer is genuine. There is no half-done with this mission. For such large rewards we expect your personal expenditure to the venture. Furthermore, my client, your true boss wishes to remain anonymous, any additional securities whether financial or medical would be yours to make."

His eyes focus and seem to stare through the Johnson as he speaks of Pandora's location. Something stuck with him, something was missing.

"Any more information you can provide on the means it may have been artificially created? Any and all information would help to bring this to a quick and clean end"

@Team: Guesses on how many other teams they've contacted already? I wouldn't be surprised if it's a very large number, and that explains their unwillingness to pay for medical and expenses.

@Spooky: Easy friend. See anything out of the ordinary?

January 8, 2073 - Soi 6

Terrence had spent the better part of his time chewing on a plastic toothpick. The bartender thought the gin 'n tonic's slice of lime needed some flourish of its own. Terrence thought it was poor decoration for such an old fashioned drink. But that had been a few minutes ago. Now, it kept him slightly occupied. The ex cop simply chewed on, nonchalantly, exuding a relaxed vibe.

Contrary to his usual style, the hitman had added a little touch of color, to his perfectly pressed light gray suit, by wearing a light blue shirt. No tie, of course. In his career, he had actually strangled a total of three marks, with their own ties. Ever since then, he had never worn one himself.

Lounging as best as he could, next to Vice, Terrence kept his eyes hidden behind a pair of mirror shades, and never took them off the man in front of them. Sure, he was good with words... but haggling and barter had never been his preferred play fields. Now, flat out lying and acting, that was different. When the Johnson introduced them to their target, only a part of Terrence's brain was surprised. After all, the slitch was THE talk of the town. Odds were, every A from 1 to 3 had a team, or numerous teams, out to bag her. And that wasn't even counting on all the independent outfits, the government agencies, and regular loonies. Everyone and their grandma was probably out looking for her. That was something Terrence didn't like very much. What he did like was the fifteen million nuyens. Now that was as sweet as it got. Although, the thought of having to split it 7 ways did make him cringe.

As Vice and Silas started throwing questions at their future employer, Terrence slowly took the toothpick out, a sly smile drawing itself on his face. Maybe, if he played his cards right, the loot could be split in less portions. Running the shadows was a dangerous business. Maybe someone would get clipped while trying to get the mark. Maybe someone would catch some friendly fire. Maybe someone would suffer from a strange stroke. The toothpick went back into his mouth.

Or maybe Pandora could offer him something bigger and better than 15 million nuyens.

He'd make sure to ask her.

Terrence had done enough jobs with the team to know they would take the offer. They all needed the cash. And some would probably relish in getting the street cred from putting the collar on Pandora.

Pandora wasn't any mark though. The way she carried herself, the way she spoke, what she had apparently done... Terrence could see the box, and couldn't wait to open it.

Again, he smiled for himself.

This was going to be... interesting.

@Team:Probably five or six teams, plus dozens more hired by other interests, and another few hundred independents, the alphabet soup of intelligence agencies, and every counter-terrorism group any of us has ever heard of. She just became the biggest mass murderer in human history. This is going to be ugly, but for fifteen million each, it should be worth it.

"I don't think any of us misunderstands your position. All we're looking for is a gesture, a sign that you trust us and that we can trust you. Right now, all we've got to go on is knowing that you know that you'd be crazy to double cross us since finding you would be child's play compared to finding Pandora. That's no way to build a partnership, especially in the middle of something this dire. It doesn't even have to be cash. You've got a hard cap on how much you're allowed to spend to get this done. I get that. I've been there. I've been in your chair. I had a budget, a schedule, and a boss to answer to if I overran either one."

Vice took another sip of his club soda, watching what little information his own empathysoft was reading from the Johnson, and wished he hadn't sent the girl away. She'd been just the thing to throw off his own feedback. Helping him forget how much he missed vodka didn't hurt either.

"But a little more information doesn't cost you anything. How long after the blast was the second video recorded, and how'd you get the secret recordings from a Horizon long range surveillance drone? What is it that you didn't want to tell me about the first video? What happened up there after she stopped transmitting?"

Mr Johnson seemed so much more comfortable without the girl down Vice's pants, there was that edge of a smile.

"We have our infiltration specialists. It was a stroke of luck actually, the information from the drone was uploaded into a newscast server 23 hours and 13 minutes since nuclear detonation and from there a biometric worm discovered it. Shortly after taking the image, the drone was hit with an ECM burst and stopped functioning."

The question of the video made his smile go sour.

"We suspect, and this is conjecture, that the scene from Z-O was filmed in a UV node. We do know that the module was sealed moments after sending, but we do not know if that was caused by Pandora or by Z-O security. Five minutes afterward, satellites adjacent to habitat detected a massive energy burst from the module, again it is unclear what the energy signature meant."

"That is all the information I know." He hesitated for a moment before adding the defining truth, "besides the garbage information from many other sources."

He took out of his vest pocket a obsidian credstick and placed it on the table.

"Consider me like one of those old posters out West. Wanted Dead or Alive."

Well at least we know we can start the bidding at 105 MIllion when we auction her off. Odds are if she's worth so much to this guy she's worth twice as much to his enemies.

----

Back in the Nexus she let the cold of the Monolith seep up into her bare feet. She scrunched her toes up in pleasure and set to work.

A straight out search would draw too much attention. She widened her parameters so that her search terms were a mere subset of a more innocuous whole, that could be narrowed down in the privacy and security of The Monolith, and then concentrated not on the terms themselves but on those that had made similar searches in the last month.

Who else might be asking the same questions and what had they learned? What had been their fate?

She focused on a number of areas.

Who was Pandora?

What had happened on Zurich-Orbital?

What had happened in Tenochtitlan and what was it's aftermath?

What was the story with the Nuke?

Who had benefited from the collapse of Aztechnologies stock price?

Where was AZT at now, who had survived and what were they doing?

Who was Mr Johnston, who was he working for, what were their motivations?

Who else had he and his masters hired?

What other power groups had an interest in Pandora and why?

Who had they hired?

What progress had all these groups made?



With her search Matrix defined she slowed her breathing and prepared for the task ahead. Carefully she threaded her Browse as far as she dared, Compiled a Sprite to watch her back while she searched and made sure all her drones were in place.

Hey Vice, tell him he's going to have to put down some sort of deposit if he wants first refusal on her. If he's wiling to pay 100+ Mil' for her I bet the market will bear much more than that...

Back in a minute.

She focused her attention back on the Nexus. Some said looking at the Sun would make you blind.

On the contrary, she thought, as she opened her eyes and mind to the blinding glare of light from the Nexus's data flows, staring at the Sun was the only way to truly see....

@Team: If I do that, he’ll walk. He’ll take his boss’s 100 million and offer it to another crew, and we’ll have yet another group in the hunt for her. Then, once we’ve got her, we’ll have to find a buyer he hasn’t burned us to. Shop around if you want, but keep it even quieter than usual. If we fuck this guy, we’d better get enough to retire very comfortably, because we’re probably done professionally.

Vice leaned back, sinking into the overstuffed couch, glad he was the fastest gun in the west.

“The drone get any sort of reading on the blast site that might give away the weapon’s fuel, or or the delivery method, or even where the blast was centered?�

Such great toes. Nice ankles, too. Such a shame.

“Remember, the more intel you bring us, the less of our time we have to spend finding it for ourselves. Every day we don’t have to spend doing research on nuclear weapon designs is a day sooner than you get to march her bare feet across the carpet into your boss’s office.�

Or dump her bullet riddled body on his desk.

Mr . Johnson shrugged, his mind slightly wandering elsewhere.

"I don't know anything about multimegaton bombs. All I do know is that the epicentre of Tenochtitlan, it's pyramids and administrative sectors were in the 2000 meter crater, leaving a hole 75 meters deep. Now if you will excuse me."


He stood up and walked over to the door. ""Be in touch."

The credstick lay on the table. As one of you pick it up you can see carefully engraved on its surface: Zurich-Orbital Gemeinschaft Bank

His thoughts, interrupted by the constant background chatter from his team, took a rueful turn as Tetsuo tried to push the Johnson's limits. With such a huge offer on the line and equally dire consequences, Spooky broke his non-interference rule with a rapid rant,

@Team So I guess even 15,000,000 Nuyen isn't enough? Well, I sure as hell don't feel like double crossing a guy, or let's face it, a corp, willing to put that much cash on the table. They're only going to take us seriously if we prove that we have what it takes to shut down Pandora... until then, we're just another group of punk runners with a marginal shot at actually doing something useful for them. He's not going to offer anything up front when the backend of the deal is sweet enough to tempt more than enough competition into the hunt. So sure, blow him off with unrealistic expectations or a double cross and see where we wind up... I hope you enjoy the bodyguard business, because if we screw up this debacle of a meet it's all we'll have left... providing we don't piss him off enough that he starts adding a measly 1 mil nuyen onto our heads while he's making his offers.

The tirade ending as abruptly as it started, Spooky's face visibly darkened as he brooded and he stepped up his pacing a notch, an outlet he could safely vent to. This was why he hated these meets. Sure, his team fared better at the negotiating table then he would've alone, but he had no patience for greedy fools who would stick their neck out over the executioner's block for a nickel and a dare.

Edit: Damn post ninja... I typed this up before Chrysalis' last post, please take it as such

Alright Spook, keep your hair on.

Vice, you can tell Mr Eric Branstoff here that his rep is solid and his involvement in clearing the SCIRE stands him in good stead. His money is good and we will be happy to take it from him.

I've got more work to do. He's got three other teams working on this and Ares and SK have 20+ between them so I need to get busy.

Even from across the admittedly small room, Vice’s replacement eyes made the letters etched into the obsidian credstik as easy to read as a billboard. Nothing they spelled out was a surprise.

He stood up from the bed, and the creases of his suit pants fell sharply into line. With the Johnson (the ex-corporate soldier refused to think of him as a man with a name) gone there was almost enough space for the room to be comfortable. Rather than bother with the encrypted commlink currently skinlinked to his brain, he just spoke out loud, relying on the data sharing from his own ears to carry his voice to Tetsuo.

Ultimately, Jack, there’s no such thing as enough. Don’t think any of us has ever had a problem finding a use for more cred. Hell, I think I spend more on practice ammunition than most Seattle residents spend on rent, and keeping myself state of the art isn’t cheap either. Plus, they’re taking orders for the new 2074 Ferrari roadster, and I won’t get to drive mine if I get us all killed.�

The shapes on the far side of the wall drew his attention again, briefly.

�You trust me to know who I can and can’t push, right? That was a guy I couldn’t push, so I didn’t. He laid all his cards on the table except for one, and then, rather than sit around sweating and not being able to answer our questions, he left. Right now, he’s probably down the hall getting finished off while he calls his boss to let him know we took the job. When that’s done, he’ll go home. Suggestions for where we go from here? Aside from the obvious of back out front to refocus for a little bit.

Spooky slowed his pacing and turned, pausing to mumble in Vice's general direction, his indignance spent. His words were tinged with a metalic aftertaste as they drifted out from the sub-vocal amp in his voice collar, "Wasn't really talking 'bout you. Think we should see where the other teams are at, where they're going and what they're good at. May be they know somethin we don't."

The eloquence he had demonstrated in response to Tetsuo's demands had faded with his emotion, his aversion to social interaction once more asserting itself in full force as he drew the unwanted attention of both Tetsuo and Vice.

The little hover-drone span and levitated over the table. The hologram of Tetsuo's icon resized itself automatically down to about two feet and stood on the table looking at the rest of her team.

Of the three teams our Johnson has hired one consists primarily of muscle, another purely of awakened individuals who eschew technology and the third possesses a Virtuakinetic individual. The first will be thoroughly penetrated by the time we leave this venue, the second will have to wait until they find the need to reactivate their 'link for some reason. The last will require some caution, I can penetrate their network but leaving anything behind to monitor their progress will be risky.

Of the groups hired by Ares and SK approximately a dozen can be easily infiltrated once I have a trace on their AccessID's. Similarly I will continue to monitor Mr Johnson to see if he hires any further teams and to glean more information about our true employer.

Pandora is a mystery, little hard information is available. Speculation is rife. She is an AI, she is a Free-Spirit, she is a Dragon, she is an Alien. Nothing helpful. An eco-activist group connected to Horizon claims to have had fore-knowledge of the attack. They are lying and Horizon has faked the evidence. We can discount that.

Some schlub in Iowa accidentally made Billions on the futures market betting on an AZT stock crash. It would appear to be a simple anomaly and that he is merely an innocent by-stander. Might warrant further investigation but it is doubtful, in any event the cops are crawling up his ass with the Hubble Telescope so if there is anything to be found there they will find it.

Aztlan is in chaos. Major powers are the troops and merc's in the Yucatan. A cease-fire has been called so they are all at a loose end. A major Airforce installation about sixty klicks South of Tenochtitlan has survived intact and it represents the only island of Matrix connectivity and Electrical Power within 160 klicks of ground-zero.

Aztechnology has been gutted. All the major Board-Members and Shareholders have been killed. The other AAA's are picking over the carcass. It is unlikely that AZT will survive in any form as a discrete entity so it is fairly safe to discount the possibility that this was an attempt at a Phoenix-like make-over.

The Zurich-Orbital Station is still in lock-down, all indications are that all the members of the Corporate Court are still on-board but they are receiving no supply deliveries and vehicles approaching the Station are being shot down by automated defences. They can't stay in there forever but there is no indication that they have relaxed one iota since the detonation.

Mr Johnson seems kosher. He fronted for Ares when they were clearing the SCIRE, bonus points, but he does not appear to be fronting for them today. He has a good rep but if we shaft him we can expect a proportional retaliation.

Did I miss anything?

Frank maintains a detachment from the negotiations themselves, for the most part. He's segmenting things off in his mind, filing away the nuances of interplay to look at for another time. If he hadn't been he'd be furious now. With fifteen million dollars on the table you don't push the employer's buttons. You don't start dictating terms to someone who already laid them down. You probe, you try to stretch things, but you certainly don't lay down a whole list of borderline ludicrous demands and rely on those with actual tact to smooth the fallout over. They were all lucky the Johnson - Eric Branstoff if appearances could be trusted, which of course he didn't - hadn't walked earlier, and written them off as unprofessional. There were twenty three other teams they knew about in the world. Twenty three out of the whole bloody community. That meant they were dealing with elite groups here, not some gutter-slut...

Lock it down Frank.

He wasn't as much frustrated by the civilian bullshit as he had been that the Johnson had left before he could request their unadulterated version of the Horizon footage. Then again, he had received it for viewing, and it was sitting in the memory of his commlink, so he tagged the file for storage, and took a moment to consider things.

Focus, that's what they needed to do. Lock out all the things you had no control over, filter out the garbage, and focus. Simple terms.

They were hired to locate Pandora.

Forget Zurich-Orbital for the time being. The place was on lockdown, and that meant it would take means well beyond any they had, could muster, or could dream about to crack in there. Forget chasing nuclear weapons for now. It's of concern what she used, and how it was deployed and actually detonated, but finding her would bring those answers. Forget Aztechnology and the bumbling stock-jock who'd scored big on their demise. The big A was triple no more, and no amount of analyzing the patterns of their demise would lead to Pandora. She wanted to see a mega burn, and she'd chosen the obvious target. End of story.

But Tenochtitlan isn't a dead end. She'd been sighted there, it was enough of a solid lead to work on. There was only the niggling knowledge in the back of his skull that Horizon was associated with one cover up that left him wondering about the footage.

Lay off of Spooky. It might not be the time, but he's fundamentally right. A meeting isn't the time to be pushing buttons, or discussing double dealing.

He doesn't speak aloud because he doesn't trust the room not to have some manner of covert detection.

We need to go somewhere secure and start gathering our own intel. First likely bet is Tenochtitlan. For the moment its the only solid lead we have, and we know at least three other teams have it as well. I'll put in a call, see if I can get a handle on where the Ares teams are looking, I suggest we all start packing for rapid deployment.

There was a time to sit back and let information come to you, and there was a time to act. Keeping connectivity to the Matrix shouldn't be a problem, provided they could keyhole in Sat access, so they could keep mining contacts wherever they went. And as much as he was frustrated with Tetsuo for jumping in on the negotiations again he had to be impressed with the information she'd gathered so far.

Someone want to put a call in to the big guy, see what he's got available for transport, and how close he can get us to Tenochtitlan?

He takes a moment to slacken his focus and open himself up to the flow of data around him. He reigns in his mind's natural tendency to just free-ride the waves of electrons to wherever they might go. He casually vets the spam traffic that has slipped through the blocks on his cheap commlink and looks beyond, resisting the temptations of the ambient simsense in the room, and focuses on the room itself. He doesn't bother further threading his scan, since he knows a dive like this isn't going to have anything sophisticated. What when he has focused on just the room itself, he starts seeking out the flow of data there, looking for hidden traffic he can latch onto, trace back it its source.

When the door closed behind the Johnson, Terrence chuckled a small laugh out. Indeed; this was going to be a mighty entertaining ride. Now, the man hadn't been out of the door for more than half a second, and things were already starting to kick into high gear. Jack was apparently having some sort of serious fit, and Tetsuo was spewing information faster than anyone's brain could possibly register. All in all, things were as usual.

Terrence's long fingered hand went for the slim credstick. He took it; twirled it in his hand like a tiny majorette's baton. Tilting his head sideways, he looked at it crookedly from above his glasses. As he slipped the small device inside his jacket, he moved to the back of the room, next to the door, and casually leaned on the wall. The toothpick he had been chewing on relentlessly was still there, dancing from one corner of his mouth to the other.

When he did finally speak, it was in his usual, casual manner, but through somewhat clenched teeth. Someone was apparently getting quite attached to his toothpick.

You guys all realize how fragged this job is, right? I mean... can we even bag her? Realistically speaking, what is she?

He sniffed. Something like the start of a cold.

I'd like to think she's taking the garbage out. If she blew the hell out of Z-O, I'm glad she did. Hell, if we're lucky enough, she fast tracking us toward the coming again of natural selection.

He chewed a little bit more, taking his hands out of his pockets to shrug.

Too many people survive these days. Dilutes the gene pool. As far as I see it, she's doing us a big favor.

He chuckled once more, waving his hand in the air as if to dismiss the whole affair.

Anyways... Favor or not, I've got bills to pay... and Vice needs to buy a sports car.

Terrence pushed himself off the wall. He had the habit of doing that lately.. that was, being a bit of an asshole.

Yea, going to Aztlan seems like the logical move. Which is straight down why I am not going. Everyone's going to go. Everyone and their grandma. Sure, Pandora was there. I'm pretty sure she's gone by now. I say we divide and conquer. That and I really don't feel like having my piss glow in the dark from too much radiation.

He finally took the toothpick out, discarding it.

But I'm just one man. Just one voice.

I agree Frank. His voice has a conciliatory tone to it, trying to get everyone to settle and focus. But he's gone and now we're left to focus and formulate our plan of action.

@Spookyjack: We'll spar later, practice our wildcat and focus a bit. Hows that Sound?

Silas stretches and adjusts his collar.

As to what the best plan is right now. The obvious plan is not necessarily the best one, but we don't have much to go on. We should be ready to move out on a moments notice though. With 23 other teams minutes could be the difference.

Vice momentarily interjects on Terrence's comments.

"Another sports car."

As the others weigh in, he's quiet. To those paying close attention, he's thinking, trying to remember something. No one's ever mistaken him for being the brains of this operation.

"Admittedly, NBC school was a few days at the end of AIT, and fifteen years ago, but I remember them covering strategic nuclear weapons, and how no one uses them. 10.4Mt is big. Bigger than anything anyone has even test detonated since the early Cold War. The bomb's exotic enough that tracking it should give us better results than stomping through the radioactive rubble.

He started a mental checklist of things he'd need to pack.

"What are we hoping to find by digging through the ashes of Ten?"

"Clues as to what she is, to have survived that much radiation without so much as a radiation suit, perhaps?" Doc Sci shrugs. "Perhaps even a clue as to where she went afterwards?"

The dwarf finally takes a drink from his beer and sits back. "Vice is right, though. Track the bomb, and perhaps we'll have a better chance of finding her."

Spooky soaked in the discussion even as he continued to watch his surroundings. The last thing they needed was for potential rivals to be listening in... security was something he took seriously, even if he didn't always understand the technicalities. Switching back to sub-vocal, his synthetic voice once more laced the air

"Should head back to the office to talk bout this... away from keen ears. Also... can we keep tabs on Mr. Johnson? If he recruits more teams, it'd be nice to keep track of em and any ideas they might come up with. Also, here's somethin to think about on the road... was Pandora actually in Aztlan? If the Z-O vid was a fake, could be that the footage of her there was faked too. If she actually is an AI, it would be a great way to mislead pursuit.

Clearing his throat and inadvertently dousing the others with audio phlegm, Spooky abruptly pivoted back to the doorway and headed out for his car, his tolerance for the bar scene fading fast. Stretching as he moved, he mentally jotted a quick note to Crow,

Yeah... could use a good workout. Think we can convince anyone to join us?

The Empathy software she had based her emulation upon for the meeting was still ticking over in The Monolith. It was warning her that the rest of the team seemed less than impressed with her negotiation technique.

It would take more time than she cared to devote to explain the nuances of this meeting to them. Even if she were able to explain her position so as to be understood they would only end up feeling stupid and resentful. She doubted very much that it would be worth the effort.

They didn't work with her because she was a pretty face.

A cursory search of public databases from the pre-awakening period indicates that 10.4 Megatons was not a denomination in wide circulation. As a matter of fact I can only find reference to one 10.4 Mt detonation anywhere and that is the original Ivy Mike detonation. The United States prototype H-bomb, the first of it's type. Interestingly it was a Three-stage device that would leave a very characteristic radiation signature. Very, very dirty and not a bomb in the traditional sense but a building sized device that was constructed as part of a custom built facility that was destroyed in the detonation.

Tactical nukes are all much smaller, free-fall warheads dropped from bombers tended to be quite a bit bigger, in the 20 Mt range, and the sort of big warheads that were mounted on ICBM's tended to be sub 10 Mt.

The largest warhead The United States ever manufactured for delivery by a missile system was only 9 Mt.

This all might be moot. No warhead detonated since the awakening has ever produced it's expected yield. Most fizzle, some, like Winternight's, produced enhanced yields or yields with unusual signatures due to alchemical alterations.

I should like it noted at this point that I am extremely wary of this deal. Mr Johnson behaved very un-professionally in my opinion. Starting out by outright refusing to negotiate on any of the basic terms of a contract like this is at best unusual.

He might as well have offered us 15 Billion Nuyen each. That number is pie in the sky until we can deliver the subject and may remain so even then.

He has made this offer to three other teams already and doubtless will make it to several more. Should all fail any progress they make will have cost his client nothing.

Even should one of them succeed the other three teams will be paid nothing for their effort regardless of how much sweat, resources and potentially even blood they invest in the search.

Buy one, get three free, seems like a pretty good deal from my point of view.

It should be noted that both Ares and SK are taking a very similar scattergun approach. I don't know about Ares but I imagine SK would be quite happy for all their teams to fail but flush the mark out just far enough for their in-house teams to sweep her up.

I agree, we should make an effort to trace the warhead. I do not believe it likely that it came out of a pre-existing stockpile. Such weapons are well guarded and they quickly become useless if not regularly maintained, triggers and fissile materials are by their very nature unstable and must be periodically replaced.

Smuggling such a device would also be massively complicated. I suspect that the weapon was built to order on site. It's yield leads me to believe that it was a replica of the Ivy Mike device. The plans are readily available. It's design is sufficiently unorthodox that it might well escape detection as the components would not have been on normal watch-lists.

I will look for evidence to support this assertion.

I would like to further propose that the rest of the team gear up and head to the vicinity of the detonation. This is where others will start their search and I suspect being within striking distance of the city will be helpful when the faeces strikes the rotating blades.

If you swing by my local Safehouse I will provide you with 'shots' for the trip.

Terrence bit her lower lip. His eyes narrowed to two slits.

What if the explosion wasn't caused by Pandora... Maybe that was just the Azzies trying to be done with her. After all, wasn't the origine of the blast the very core of Aztechnology's headquarter?

He pushed himself off the wall he had been resting against.

In theory, Pandora seems to be going after the Megas. She apparently did something to Z-O, and then seemed to have attacked Aztlan.

Terrence took a small pause, mostly for dramatic effect, and his own personal pleasure.

But then, maybe Pandora is simply sowing discord. Maybe Z-O went in lockdown mode for security reason. Maybe the Azzies fired the nuclear device. Mythology wise, Pandora is supposed to have unleashed mankind's evil... Maybe all that is happening is the produce of men, and Pandora is simply the trigger; the catalyst. We'll probably figure that out when she strikes at her next target... because if she's the woman I believe she is, she's going to strike again.

Strangely enough, Terrence slowly ran his tongue on his upper theeth, an almost sadistic smile creeping on his features.

Doc Sci turned toward Terrence and raised an eyebrow. "You have some idea who she is?"

The hitman flashed a pearl white smile to Doc Sci.

I'm rather sure he parted both hands, gesturing to the entire group that we all have our own little theories.

He shoved his hands back into his pockets, looking as casual as he could.

I wouldn't venture as far as saying I know who she is. What I do think I know, is what she is, and what she's attempting.

Terrence smiled once more, apparently amused by something that had crossed his mind. He walked over to Doc Sci, giving him a friendly pat on the shoulder.

Her next hit will confirm wheter or not I'm on the right track. But if I am... She's doing some wonderful work.

He looked over towards Tetsuo holographic form.

I take it that if there is a trip to be taken to Aztlan, you'll be keeping your body here, correct?

Frank finds himself rather unconsciously rubbing the bridge of his nose, despite being in full VR. Even his icon, a shadow of his old life a phantom in a pressed and polished UCAS Marine dress uniform with all its natural parts intact, is doing it. He manages to reign in the desire to snap at them all. They don't deserve it. Well, most of them don't. The wall of technical speech approach has never been equated in his mind to intelligence, at least socially meaningful intelligence, and to call out a Johnson's professionalism, especially after tacitly ignoring the terms of a contract, was just plain grating. Even in the shadows there's a chain of command, and when you're in the dime the Johnson is your Charlie Oscar. You might not trust the man, but you'd best show the man who signs over your pay some respect. Fake it if you need to.

Alright folks, let's tighten this up. We've been hired on the basis that we're professionals and here we're openly talking shop in a potentially bugged environment, if not by the owner of the place, by the man who just offered us a bounty on the world's most wanted. And make no bones about it, this wasn't some negotiable contract, it wasn't our standard deal, this was a straight up 'you've been told, take it or leave it' contract. That's why there was no negotiation brokered.

He takes a moment, a picosecond since he's flittering about the club's Matrix space, to collect himself, to lock his emotions down.

T-town might be the obvious bid for us now, but if we didn't have that Horizon footage, would we be thinking it? I'll wager at least half of the corp-sponsored scut out there are trying to fit themselves for space, figuring the lockdown's because she's making Z-O her new home. We've got a leg up that only three teams so far have, and we're not going to have it for long.

He grunts over the digitized channels, and his meat fist flexes a moment, reflexively.

We want to split, that's fine, but we need intel before we can pick any other targets, so lets all give it tonight and then conference in the morning. Pick the brains of your best, boys, because we're going to need every little detail we can get. But be quiet if you can. If we're going to spy on the other teams, you know they'll be trying with us.

He had a visit home to make, an old friend to contact, and maybe even a confession to make. This was, as it's been stated already, going to be one hell of a wild ride, and he knew well it was the kind of deal you didn't necessarily walk out of alive. At least with war, or a merc contract, you knew what the enemy was capable of. This was unpredictable. But it would be the last job he ever really needed to take, at least financially speaking.

Taking his shades and hooking them in the opened collar of his shirt. As always, Frank came through with his no bullshit attitude. Terrence had never been in the military himself, but he did appreciate the efficiency with which soldiers got shit done. Yes, Vice was more of a loose canon than Frank, but they were alike in many ways: neither bitched and moaned. Ever.

Fishing inside his jacket, Terrence took a silve cigarette case out, clicking it opened with a smooth move. He tapped the cigarette a few times against the case, listening to the end of Frank's speech, and finally stuck it into the corner of his smirk.

Spoken like a trooper, he added, throwing the case across the tiny room to Vice. The plan's good. Let do it.

His hand went back inside his jacket, fishing out a pack from Matchsticks. For the first time since the begining of the meet, Terrence used the commlinked jacked into his brain. The message he sent out was for one person, and one person only.

@Tetsuo

He flipped the matchstick pack open with one hand, lighting up his smoke.

A firm believer that talk is nothing without action, Spooky was already opening his slightly dented car door when he heard Frank's voice re-inforcing his own views on details of their latest task. Eyeing the creases in the plasteel, he reflected somewhat bitterly,

"Modified for troll use should mean that they put a layer of armour around this damn heap, but noooo, all they do is add enough space so that I'm not driving with my knee on the gas pedal".

Checking the alley where he'd parked for observers, Spooky hastily stripped to his Trigun boxers before donning his dark form fitting armour. The cool night air was abrasive to his nearly nude form and had nearly as much to do with his haste in re-clothing himself as the self-loathing he held for his gruesome, intimidating physique. He made use of his dreadful appearance when the situation called for it, but preferred to remain covered up whenever possible.

Finally slipping back into his dark blue duster and replacing his now very lightly tinted shades, Spooky once more spoke up,

"You lovely freaks gonna join me streetside, or are we heading our seperate ways now? If so, I'm heading back to the office. Everything I need is there... I'll pack up and then I'll be training for a while. Feel free to come if you're troll enough for the pain... er, exercise."

A razor thin grin etched itself accross his rough contenance; a strenuous workout in body armour would be just the thing to sharpen his thoughts and focus his spirit for the what he suspected would be a hunt far superior to any he had yet undertaken.

Reaching his bike Silas grins at Spooky's voice over the comms. Undoing his tie he throws it into his courier bag with his suit jacket and pulls out his leather jacket and bike helmet. Giving his bike a quick one over as he puts on his leather jacket he cues up his comm.

I'll ride to the office with yah spooky. My gears there anyways, and I could use the work out.

He grins as he climbs onto his bike and starts it up.

@Spooky: Make sure to remember to pull your punches if they're joining us.

With that he drives his bike up beside spooky's buggy and looks over and nods.

<<New Encrypted Channel>>@Terrence

[ Spoiler ]

Terry, I appreciate your dedication but I need the other teams. We aren't getting paid here yet so I want to do this as cheaply as possible.

We can use the other teams to gather information for us. Even use them as cannon fodder by feeding them information discretely.

For the time being they are the most valuable resource we have.

She wasn't in the mood to listen to any more of Frank's ill-informed preaching and returned her attention to The Monolith.

She Threaded her data analysis channel and, with a theatrical flick of her wrist, opened a cinema sized display window in space directly in front of herself. She ran both videos of Pandora, carefully checking them for signs of forgery or clues they might exploit.

When she was done a thought occurred to her. Mr Johnson had, no doubt, paid a Hacker to supply him with a clean disposable link for this job. Something that looked good but didn't conceal any useful information about the real client or Mr J's other business. He might even have paid a little extra for misleading information to be planted to draw the casual Hacker away from the truth.

But would he have been willing to pay to have the same exact thing done four different times?

If he was going to offer the same job to four different teams he might just use the same link for all four meets and not bother to re-clean it in between times.

Threading the appropriate channel, she dived into her copy of his Access Log. There would be clues in it. Access ID's, GPS co-ordinates, hell even the traces of previous Hackers looking for clues. Her Otaku rival might even have left traces of her Resonance Signature.

She wondered if he had turned it off yet, she certainly would have, and checked to make sure. Some of the Mesh Tags she'd dusted the room with earlier had left the room with him and she checked on them to see where they were now. A quick Scan ought to reveal all the nearby nodes which would give her some AccessID's to get started on.

It was going to be a busy couple of hours.

Just when the flying cigarette case seems certain to collide with Vice’s freshly shaved head, it is plucked from the air and lobbed back at Terrence with a flick of the wrist, without so much as a glance in his direction. Instead, Vice’s attention remains focused on the discussion swirling around him, and switches back to encrypted communication through the commlink skinlinked to his upper arm.

“Sounds good. I’ll bring the bagels for breakfast. Jack, I think I’ll take you up on that challenge. When I’m done, I’ll see what I can find out without committing us to doing anyone any favors.�

Sunglasses are retrieved from his inside jacket pocket and slid onto Vice’s precision sculpted face. The urge to find the girl with the green hair and is suppressed, mostly by the weight of the situation and the dire need to maintain operational security. Instead, he makes his way out, scanning the crowd for any sign of the Johnson, or anyone else who’s taking a conspicuous interest in him or the rest of the crew.



�Frank, Tetsuo, can one of y’all make sure no one tagged us, particularly me?�

Doc Sci calmly reaches into his pouch and removes his handheld scanner, quickly switching it over to the radio signal scanner mode and testing each of the remaining members of the party for any tags that may have been slipped on them. Once done with that, he silently draws his tag eraser out of another pouch and deals with any tags he may have found.

"There. That's done. Anything else, boyos, or shall we head on out?" He asks with a small grin.

It was funny how paranoia manifested itself on so many different levels. She tended to the massively overblown conspiracy theory but each to their own.

<<Encrypted Channel>>@Vice

I've had the place under surveillance for over an hour and cracked every node within two hundred yards. If there are any bugs in here they are hard-wired and the owners don't know about it. I'm fairly certain you are safe. I've got work to do but Frank is more than capable of ensuring you don't pick up any electronic surveillance between here and the office.

If you are arranging for transport South I could use being dropped of in Denver.

----

The tiny transparent spider skittered over the surface of the pyramid. It was odd to be doing this here in Shadowland, she would get a flea in her ear and her karma would be in the gutter for weeks if Fastjack caught her. He never had and probably never could, if she was able to hide from Deus she keep one step ahead of that old fox, but she suspected he knew when she had been up to no good in his systems. She didn't have a very good poker face.

There were tiny cracks in the code that made up the mortar joining the giant virtual blocks together and her microscopic form was able to slip through them into the structure.

When she had finished with the data she was looking for she carefully covered her tracks and left. Usually she would leave back-doors in systems like this but this was no place to leave a calling card. She could get back in if she really needed to.


-----

Back on The Monolith she paced backwards and forwards over the shiny black surface.

She didn't like what she had learned. Her paranoid delusions were running wildly out of control. At least she hoped it was just paranoia.

Time to take a break, get some perspective. She would report back to the team and get on with laying some surveillance down on their competition.

----

She got back to the team while they were in transit.

<<new_channel_dynamic_encryption_pattern_delta_four>>Burst transmission@team

Progress has been made. Mr Johnson has made his offer to a fourth team. They didn't like the deal and told him to take a hike. He ditched his burner 'link and collected his payment. He'll be leaving from Sea-Tac in about three hours for a long 'vacation'. We won't be dealing with him again.

Should we succeed the comm-code he gave us will let his client know directly.

Who that client is remains a mystery.

However.

Mr Johnson's payment came from a defunct Renraku slush fund used to finance deniable black ops in the Yucatan.

The account has been dormant since 2060, the corporate expediter responsible for it's operation died in the SCIRE shutdown and presumably the account had no paper trail or official links to Renraku.

Whoever paid Mr Johnson did so with funds they could only have acquired whilst locked in the Arcology with Deus and his deranged minions.

One possibility is that one of the surviving Whites is behind this job. I am uncertain how many escaped or what their current allegiance or goals might be. Puck is occasionally heard from and Fastjack has vouched for him as a reformed character but I sense that he would undertake such a search in public.

The other possibility does not bear thinking about.

I will not bore you with my opinions about Morgan and Deus.

If there is any possibility that either might have survived the Crash in some form we are in way over our heads.

If I find conclusive evidence that a pre-Crash AI is involved I will simply inform G.O.D. and move to the Moon until the dust settles.

I live in hope that a more mundane explanation proves to be true. In the meantime I shall continue my infiltration of our competition.

--Message Ends--

<<Transmission Complete:0.4MP Transmitted in 0.22s.Connection Terminated>>

Confident that the group isn’t being counter-surveilled, Vice leaves the club, grinding his teeth a bit. Outside, an agent spoofs the AccessID his car sends to GridGuide as he settles into the driver’s seat.

�Dropping Phil a line. He should have a special perspective on the mess down south, as long as he’s still in his old office.�

The engine starts with a snarl. There’s a reason that Lone Star and Knight Errant both drive a car based on the Chrysler-Nissan Skyline. The sequential turbochargers howl with every nudge of the throttle. The tires are set wide apart for stability, and pushed out to the extreme corners to lengthen the wheelbase for improved cornering. The interior is spacious enough to pick up a joygirl, or maneuver an assault rifle. The former is common. The latter hasn’t happened in this car. Yet.

He pulls away and into the dark, rainy Seattle night. Confident that the layers of software will protect both him, and the intended recipient, he composes a quick message to the spy.

<<@Phil: Looks like things have gone to shit down in Azzieland. How much of that fallout has spilled over into your neck of the woods? Is it better or worse than the news is making it look? Look me up. We’ll hit Rio for Carneval. It’s always a hell of a party. –V>>

After listening to Tetsuo’s theories on AIs, and the origins of the money being offered, he speaks up.

�Or we’re working for some UCAS intelligence agency. Not out of the question that someone attached to JTFS discovered the slush fund during operations in the SCIRE, reported it to his superior, and the account became an emergency contingency fund for operations that couldn’t ever go before a Congressional Oversight committee, like hiring a crew of professional criminals to hunt for a thermonuclear terrorist.

Phil get's back to you quite quick.

<<Hey, I am surpised you are not down there enjoying cheap tequilas and the señoritas. The situation is pretty dire in Azzieland. We have a lot of people displaced. The AZT scrip is not even worth the paper is printed on. That's not mentioning that all the major South American banks just disappeared overnight, actually you are seeing more people without commlinks now and trading with gold. People are making huge amounts of money trying to get a piece of everything that was AZT, mining rights to cosying up with the new government. The current el Presidente is the old agricultural minister, already a few groups have taken pot shots at them. The cartels are looking at getting their hooks into the new government. It's a land of opportunity at the moment, if you know what to want. Actually I have a job if you want, I have two people who need to be babysat from Seattle to Ten. Come on down the water's warm and the beer's are chilled.>>

Vice stops at a red light. The neon go-go boots and transparent raincoat draw his attention to the figure hunched under the awning of a shop closed for the night. He waffles on whether to roll down the window.

The message from the spy snaps him back to work. While he waits for the light to change, he composes a quick reply, and sends it off.

<<Nice. Sounds like I could buy a condo in Cabo for a case of bottle water, a handful of shotgun shells, and a box of bandaids. Then again, it doesn’t sound like the Azzies have enough left to stop the Confed, the Peublos, and the Amazonians from chopping the country up like Howling Coyote tore up the USA. I’d be amazed if San Diego and the entire Baja peninsula isn’t Peublo land by the end of the month, and Texas isn’t back to its’ good old size by Valentine’s Day. I’ll run the babysitting gig around the table and see what’s up. Who are these kids of yours, and why would they want to go swimming in the hottest water in the world?>>

As the message vanishes into the digital ether, his attention returns to the girl huddled under the awning. Good spot. Close to the street, at an intersection with a really long light. If it weren’t raining, she’d be doing brisk biz.

How’d everyone like a little something extra for going to Ten? Looks like I’ve stumbled onto an opportunity to make a delivery that might supplement our operational budget.�

On the offhand chance that she's a decoy, he pulls the Viper from the glovebox and rests it on the center console, round in the chamber.

The girl shivers in her see through jacket looking around. Looks like her date's stood her up. She pulls the jacket around her as she briskly walks over to the light only to have it change before she can get across. She looks up in that this is really not my day look.

<<Two experts on loan from Ares. A man and a woman couple. Both used to be in NEST in their UCAS days. We occasionally share our toys.>>

<<Can’t say I’m surprised that Knight threw his lot in with you boys, especially since you all put in the work to train these two. If someone blew up Tenoctitlan, Detroit can’t be far behind. Will someone else be keeping them safe while they’re working, or is their security on the ground part of the contract?>>

The light changes.

The Viper goes into the map pocket in the driver’s side door.

Vice turns into Dalton Zachary, complete with warm, friendly smile.

The window slides down.

“Wretched night to be caught out. Can I offer you a lift somewhere?�

<<I am not sure if Detroit disappeared anyone would notice, although the crime rate would drop. Just make sure they land safely. If you want to work as their perimeter security on the ground you can, but that's optional. They are told to find externals to hire on the ground.>>


The girl looks at the insides of the dry car and thinks this is probably the best bit of luck come her way in a bit.

"Yeah, thanks. I can't believe my boyfriend stood me up. Again."

She runs her fingers through her hair, brushing away some of the wetness from its coifed anarchy, the hair turns as if airbrushed into a neon pink. Her nails are silver with little dragon holograms.

"You can leave me at a cab stand. Looks like this evening's ruined."

She sighs and looks out the window.

<<When are they leaving, and do they already have their travel plans made? Any chance we'll get a look at their data when they're done? With how fucked up nukes have been for the last fifty years, I'm curious why this one worked so well.">>

The map of the area hovers in front of Vice's eyes, several taxi stands pulse softly to the beat of the windshield wipers.

"Lucky guy, getting a second chance to piss you off. Nothing says the night's ruined though. Just have to find your own party, even if it's just opening a bottle of wine, running a hot bath, and laying into a good book."

<<There is a transport leaving tomorrow morning. Wheels up at 0600. It may take a couple weeks before any hard data, even though we like sharing toys we don't like sharing secrets. This is the intelligence business after all.>>

The girl looked you over for the first time.

"Hard to say where I am going to find a party, since he was holding our tickets to the concert. I don't like going home, besides only nerds and dweebs do that. Oh by the way my name is Katrina, but everyone calls me Kat. Knowing any fun places?"

The swarm of taxi stands is replaced by an array of the clubs that his building concierge has him on the guest list for.

"Dalton. Nice to meet you, Kat. City's full of fun places. Let's see if we can find you a party."

The car accelerates through a yellow light as he takes a moment to bring everyone else up to speed, silently, through the skinlink.

<<Talking to Phil about escorting some Ares scientists to Ten as part of a joint UCAS/Ares venture to study the blast. Haven't brought up cash yet, but the flight goes wheels up at 0600, so if we're going to go, we need to make the call now. By the way, don't think I'm going to make it to the office to work out tonight.>>

Afterward, he sends another message to Hayes, and takes a moment to fully check the girl out.

<<Tough but fair. What's our payout on this trip?>>