Voices

They moved to the beat up furniture around the Celestial 3D Vidconferencing machine. As the men made themselves comfortable, opening beers and lighting cigarettes, Nelson keyed up the machine. Irish lit up a cigar as Nelson pulled down the holo screen.

"This is a black bag op with two objectives," he began.

A grainy picture appeared on the screen.

"Marcel Duvet. A Belgian national. Age unknown. He started his career as a hitter in the Belgian mob. Worked for them for several years, but he disappeared after he was implicated in a particularly nasty gangland hit. He resurfaced two years later in England. Did three contract killings. Probable employer, the IRA."

Another grainy photo appeared.

"Next time he shows up it's in Zaire leading French backed mercs. This is where he acquired the moniker the Belgian. After the revolution failed, he dropped from sight again."

Duvet again, this time in tiger striped camo and a maroon beret.

"Showed up in new Hong Kong five years ago with some military grade wetware and a sack full of cash. He took several contracts for various corporate employers until he hit the number two man at Syntech. He was forced to flee Hong Kong and worked for other sponsors around the world. He is wanted for hits in Rio, L.A., New York, Quebec, Germany, Switzerland and Genoa to name a few. Last year he showed up here in Singapore as a security adviser for Yamato."

"He's good. The man who took out Jensen and the Swede. He also has hunted down and reprimanded, read eliminated, two or three teams who have run against Yamato. He is also our primary target."

A second picture flashed on the screen, a pretty young girl. Black hair. Brown almond shaped eyes.

"Her name is China Trasconte. Her father Marco is one of the foremost researchers into VR technology. The man is a genius. He left Syntech to work for Yamato three months ago and Syntech wants him back. Yamato has him under so many layers of security getting him would take an army. But they have his family in the Yamato compound downtown. We're gonna grab her, and give Syntech the leverage they need to get Marco to come home. The contract is specific, her mother and older sister are not, I repeat not to be harmed. Syntech feels they will work on the old man."

"If you gents will put on your goggles and jack in, our Ghostrider will walk you through the mission."

After they had all jacked in, a soft rasping voice said, "this is the set."

The VR panned to the Yamato building, then to a manhole some 500 meters distant. A red arrow indicated the manhole, "This is the EZ."

As it zoomed in it passed through the manhole and into a storm drain, it then ran down the drain with tic marks indicating 100's of feet. It stopped before a large round metallic hatch.

"First security door. Open and guarded during the day closed at night," she rasped into their collective ears. The VR passed through the door and down another tunnel until it came to a grille, this rose and they proceeded onwards. A platform with a control station appeared.

A large outflow pipe was highlighted in red.

"This is your way into the building. It's a sewage outflow valve. Once the flow is killed, the hatches at the top will be blown for you and you will be in the sub basement. From there you will have to play it by ear," she finished.

As the men took off their goggles Nelson said, "Irish, give 'em the weapons brief."

The big man stood up and approached the podium.

"We will be using old faithful, the Smith and Wesson mark 89 assault rifles with Mk3 silencers," he began.

Picking up one he grabbed a clip from the table.

"Mixed feed thirty round banana clips. Ball and armor piercing in a stagger set with a tracer when you're down to five in the clip. Remember to watch for the tracer if it comes to shooting your way out. With the silencers you won't hear it go dry."

With this he turned the rifle on a target set up at the far end of the open warehouse. Irish opened up and let the clip run. The silent phhutting was almost inaudible. When the tracer went the gun was empty before it hit the target and burned out.

"They're good guns, lightweight, with good penetration and they're durable," he said chewing on his cigar.

He placed the assault rifle on the table and picked up a large pistol.

"That's it for this one, except for your personal side arms. We have some Colt Commandos for anyone who didn't bring his own."

With that, the big man killed his Guinness and put the cigar back in his mouth.

Nelson stood up and said, "Let's go to the sand table and we will walk through the extraction."

The sand table was a table top miniature. It was laid out to represent the Yamato compound. A second table was set up to show the insides of the building.

Nelson walked them through the part covered by the sim. A few questions were asked, but for the most part Carrie had done her part well. It was only after they were inside that the real questions began.

"Here we will part. Team A, that's you men, will go after the girl. I will go after the Belgian," Nelson said, moving the small figures on the interior of the model building.

"Why you alone?" Dutch said. "If he is that bad, why not take someone with you?"

Nelson looked at him. "The girl is the money part of the deal. Besides, another man would just give Duvet more targets."

"If the girl is the money, why go after Duvet?"

"My reasons are my own, all you need to know it that it's necessary," Nelson said easily.

"It seems to me we are all in this together. Maybe you're making some extra for the Belgian and keeping it for yourself?"

"Maybe," Nelson said. His anger was rising.

"Well, maybe we should all talk about money again," Dutch said.

Before Nelson could speak the Irishman spoke up, "Dutch, I brought you into this. If you're gonna be an ass, you can walk. I can get another gun in no time."

Dutch looked at Irish, an angry retort on his lips, but it died there when he looked into the big man's eyes. The large man's face had a blank expression, but the eyes were intense. Dutch decided he wanted none of that.

Nelson let the silence stand for a few moments then said, "It's my op, Dutch. I make the decisions. If you can't live with it, you know where the door is."

"Forget it," Dutch said, "it's your op."

"Good enough," Nelson said.

"From the elevators you will progress to this room. Use the injectors to neutralize the rest of the family. Once you have the girl, Ghostrider will cover your egress. Once you start your E & E, you will retrace your steps. Remember, do not, I repeat do not harm any of her family. One of them gets hurt and we don't get paid.

Once you reach the sewer, you will wait for me. If I am not there in five minutes, you will follow the escape plan and meet Duffy in the panel van.

If I am not with you, directions to collect will be in the glove box."

He looked at Irish, "Simple code. Ghostrider can knock it out for you in a few minutes."

"Remember, non-deadly force unless you have to fight your way out. One last thing, save the last bullet for yourself. These guys are working on a new VR. The last thing you want is to spend the rest of your life as a plaything in someone else's twisted world," Nelson finished.

Wednesday, March 18, 23:00 hours

Yamato Enterprises, a small corporation based in Singapore. Yamato was one of several small companies that kept its head above water by creating cheap copies of other people's chips. They skirted the edge of legality, keeping an army of lawyers on staff to fight the endless series of patent and copyright violations. Yamato had its own R&D section, working on a VR that would be more addictive then anything seen before. This was Yamato's greatest hope of going from a small corporation to a megacorporation. No one knew how close they were to the breakthrough that would give them a chip that would command that kind of market share.

Yamato had state of the art security systems. All of the small corps engaged in "cheap chipping" did. Most of the bigger corporations did not have the patience to fight the long drawn out court battles that would put an end to it.

More often than not they simply paid the money and sent a team in to wreak as much havoc as they could. Either jockeys armed with sophisticated site specific viruses, or hard teams to destroy production facilities. Occasionally even dispatching a team to eliminate a particularly successful lawyer or administrator.

The small corps accepted this as a price of doing business. Their systems were protected by the blackest ICE, and round the clock live jockeys whose decks were filled with programs even more lethal. The hard security teams were all loaded with military grade wetware. Most were lead by men who had made reputations for themselves breaking into corps. Some of the best independent infiltrators made their way to these corps for the steady pay and longer life expectancy. Nelson sat three hundred yards from the entrance to the storm drain his team would use as its ingress route. The Irishman, Dutch, and the Kid crouched behind him. All were wearing blacksuits, body armor and loaded down with equipment. Nelson took a deep drag on his cigarette, the faint glow briefly illuminating his face. A cold drizzle fell and black clouds obscured the moon. How many times had he sat like this? All of his own skills now totally useless. Wholly dependant on a person who was miles away with a data cord and a cyberdeck.

A flash of lightning cracked, illuminating the concrete canyons. His team was briefly visible, crouched in their places of concealment. A lone car drove slowly past the walls of the Yamato compound. A big black sedan. The sight of it took him back to his last op with Dev.

It was an extraction, of course. The Major was the best at that. A building not unlike the one before Nelson now. Different name, same thing. All concrete and glass, high security wall, and hardmen on patrol.

That voice in his ear, this time not over a radio. "Can you take him?" it asked quietly.

"Got him Maj...Dev," he replied. He was still not comfortable calling him anything but major. He wiped the sweat and water from his eye and returned to the scope of the Barrett 88. In his crosshairs, a guard behind security glass was checking in a big black sedan. Luxury car. Something that he would never even dream of owning. And the ride their target was using.

"Go" was all he heard from the Major. His finger took up the slack on the trigger. The big black rifle snorted and sent its 50 cal. armor piercing shell on its way. The guard had no chance. The safety glass shattered, like the surface of a still lake when a rock is thrown in. The guard's body was catapulted back into the pristine white wall and slid out of sight. A red smear on the wall the only way you would know he had been there.

Nelson had no time to survey the aftermath. This was not a military operation. Confirming the kill was not important. There was no snipers log, no spotting scope. And no gunship backup he reminded himself. Nelson swung the rifle to the hood of the big car and flipped the selector switch. When the cross hairs were centered over the block Nelson ripped off the rest of the clip. The fifteen shells fired off in less than two seconds. They ripped the semi-armored hood to shreds and riddled the block with holes. The driver had just tromped on the accelerator, but the big car only moved a few feet, stopping when it hit the barrier the guard had not had time to raise.

By then the Major and the rest of the crew were already around the car. Small charges blew the locks out of the door. He pulled the driver out and sent him to the pavement with a dose of sedative delivered from a high pressure injector. Martin dragged the target out and administered a dose to her the same way. Briggs pulled the bodyguard out of the other side and dispatched him the old fashioned way, 10mm shell through the temple.

By this time, Nelson had the Barrett broken down and in its case. The screech of rubber on concrete announced the arrival of their wheelman. Everyone piled into the car and they were rolling before the first alarm sounded within the compound.

Typical operation for the Major. Slick. Target secured with minimal collateral damage and no casualties to his team. It was the kind of thing Nelson aspired to be able to do.

Her voice crackled in his ear, "Beginning run."

Carrie sat alone in the darkened upstairs room. The lights were dimmed. Her body was relaxed, wearing only a simple bra and panty set. A clock set to the nuclear clock ticked off the minutes. The Cybertronics 60TM deck sat before her. She wanted a Syntech X-100. The 60TM was a reliable deck, but she had to pick and choose her applications with care. The X-100 would hold all her apps and any she managed to charm out of Stix.

She carefully considered her last app slot. She wanted to load her old standby trace Mrk 15. But she didn't really see where she would be tracing much on this one. A black chip sat in its static proof bag. Her latest gift from Stix. She shuddered when she considered what it was.

Carrie was no killer. She had never used a black prog against another decker. She had plenty of things to dump him, or fry his deck or tie up his processor to the point he was moving in slow motion.

This was different. Stix called it Soulscramble. It was a cute name for a prog designed to kill. Its function was to send biofeedback into the target's deck. A cute routine shorted his dampers and also killed his dump switch. Then the biofeedback would fry his brain. It just scrambled his neural pathways. Sent shocks that would destroy the ability of the synapses to uptake neurotransmitters. There was no way out for the target. This wasn't black ICE you could throw and then console yourself with the idea that your target may have been able to survive. If you keyed it you were taking someone's life, as surely as if you fired a gun into his head. It was as simple as that.

She sometimes wondered about Stix. He was a rogue program designer who sold his custom stuff only to a select few deckers. The legends all used Stix's custom stuff. Colorado was rumored to have gotten his Data Hammer from Stix. She had lucked into meeting Stix one night in a games construct called Alpha 1.

He had taken an instant liking to her and she had been receiving gifts of software for over two years now. How he had found her she had no idea. So far his stuff had given her the edge she needed to make it in the really high paying jobs. This was odd though, Stix wasn't known for attack programs. He was famous for infiltration and screening scripts. To her knowledge this was his first black code.

She glanced at the clock, five minutes left. She toyed with the chip. Suddenly she pulled it out of its static proof bag and jacked it into her deck. She attached the NI cable to the jack behind her ear and then with a deep breath, she jacked into her deck.

The world she despised faded from view. She was in her safe room, her personal node in the matrix. Protected by the best ICE she could afford. She exited into the lines and streaked off towards the Yamato node.

"Radio test at 2300 and 23 seconds," She sent to the small transmitter attached to her deck in the meat world.

"Check," came the clipped reply.

She wondered again about Nelson. He was such a strange man. On an op he was everything you could want. Cool, professional, unflappable. His mind seemed infinitely capable of expansion and adoption to any situation. But once he was off the job he changed. He became morose and tentative. She'd had to initiate sex the first time.

She knew she loved him, but she only loved the man he was when he was like he was now. She had found herself disdaining the man he was when he wasn't on a job. The fights had been over trivial things, usually started by herself. She admitted that. She couldn't bring herself to talk with him about what really bothered her.

She reached the node and observed it for a few moments. Then checked the time.

"Beginning run," she said and fired up her active icons.

Nelson signaled to his team and they moved out. Reaching the manhole cover, Irish and Dutch expertly removed it with the large levers designed for the purpose. Nelson was the first man in.

The storm sewer was knee deep in water from the recent rains. Nelson would have to take that into account on his time table. He had two minutes to reach the electronically sealed entrance to the Yamato section of the sewer. Dutch slid down the ladder after pulling the cover back on. Like a submariner in the movies, Nelson thought.

The team splashed down the narrow track, each one clutching his weapon to his chest and hunched to keep from banging his head on the low ceiling. Nelson passed various unsavory things floating in the quickly running water. The most macabre was a body, jammed onto a ledge.

She had been young. A small sim player was next to her, the NI cable leading to a rusting tiara on her head. VR junkie, Nelson thought as he spared her only a cursory look as he moved past. He wondered idly what was on that chip that made the real world not worth coming back to, or perhaps it was something in her life that made junking out on VR look pleasant.

He reached the sealed off section of the sewer with twenty seconds to spare.

"Team in position," he breathed into the throat mike.

Carrie keyed her first screening program. Instantly her avatar appeared as a harmless bit of inter-company email. She slipped into the node and joined an unending procession of such data packets. The ICE did not react to her, and a quick look showed no alarms going off.

She passed a data packet with a priority stamp and immediately used her capture program. At the speed of thought her capture took the packet, analyzed it and fed the recognition into her screen. She released the packet and her own avatar shimmered. She was now a priority packet and slipped off the email path at the first opportunity.

Now she was in a security data pipe. The screen was still working, but she noticed that the ICE was beginning to examine her more closely. She keyed her invisibility. She was sure she had gone as far as masquerading would get her.

Moving quickly she found the security keypad she wanted and fired up her hex decrypter. This was another present from Stix. It peeled away the layers of code protecting the keypad like an onion. In two seconds she had the access.

"Team in position," came through to her consciousness in a clipped tone.

She keyed the access and saw the relays click.

"Go," she breathed.

The door slid open. Nelson held his breath, waiting for alarms, but when none came he ordered, "Move."

The team moved into the section of the storm drain Yamato had appropriated. It was clean, almost antiseptic compared to where they had just come from. At the end of the long corridor they came to a grille that was down.

It slid noiselessly upward and the team passed through. Two hundred feet more and they would be at the outflow pipe. Nelson breathed a sigh, all up to Carrie again.

Carrie was in a bind. The grille was in the security grid, but the outflow pipe was in maintenance. Even as she slid through the data wall into the maintenance grid she realized she would not make it. The team would be sitting there waiting for her. She keyed up her hex decrypter again, but it had trouble with he flow controls. In reality it was only seconds, but to her it seemed like hours. When it finally got a lock she killed the flow and opened the intake valves in the building's basement.

Carrie made a dangerous decision. She couldn't keep up with the team in the grid. There were just too many internal security firewalls. Her options were limited. She could call an abort and the team would have to go it on its own or abort. She could try and keep up, but that was almost as bad as an abort. Or she could try and seize the main security section. If she could do that she could turn the system against itself, using the internal security monitors to follow the team and disabling security measures as they approached them.