~M
“Can we literally go anywhere without being shot at?” Apocalypse says bitterly.
“Is that a trick question?” Peppermint White Ninja groans. At some point they got caught up by three different bounty hunters. As Lipservice is currently under a light cover (in that if he isn’t under cover then by rule of the Hunt he would have to declare the bounty on Pepper and Apocalypse himself), he cannot come out as Federali. So they are running to the cruiser that is inside a fifty story parking garage, whilst under heavy fire.
“At least we aren’t falling down an elevator shaft.” Lipservice grunts, popping a few cover shots while Pepper and Apocalypse advance past that next hovvan. Bullets riddle the van, not making it through the base where the two are crouching, but bursting various child safety items and stuffed VI toys.
“See that’s the right attitude.”
“Having that low of expectations is a little ridiculous.” Apocalypse pouts.
“Hey! Run?” Lipservice mutters, throwing bullets in an arch.
“Sorry.” Pepper laughs, vaulting the remains of the van and landing in a roll. Bullets shatter the concrete around his right side. Pepper dodges left behind the front of a sedan. He puts his hand over the side of the car, shooting his pistol randomly. Lipservice appears to his far right, near the back of the car.
“Heh, just fucking with you. This is kind of a blast.” Lipservice grins, his tie loosened. Loosened where it isn’t half blown off. Last few hours have been a little ‘interesting’.
“Are you both making fun of me?” Apocalypse bitches when she catches up, running up between the two men.
“Why are we arguing with an AI composite of a supermodel?” Lipservice yelps while throwing a few more bullets up and right. Three men are shooting from farther up the section, aiming from between the gap formed by the angled area up to the next floor and several cars.
“Is that some sort of philosophical question?”
“I guess it is, isn’t it?”
“Do I have a word limit?”
“Are you two treating me like a fucking essay question?”
“A little.” Pepper chuckles.
“Well, I am a citizen of the country of Corialis and I do not appreciate being treated that way.”
“What?” Pepper looks at Apocalypse strangely. A bullet hits the windows of the sedan, shattering glass everywhere. Pepper huddles over Apocalypse instinctively.
“Did I say something off?” Apocalypse says, sounding a little scared actually. Pepper looks for something in her eyes, but realizes his emotions are wasted on the wrong person. If that is even what you call her.
“No. I just. Nevermind.” Pepper mutters, taking aim at a man hiding behind a two seater to their nine and above. Pepper isn’t the best shot, but the hunter is loading his gun in plain sight. A blind person could feel his way into shooting him. They really don’t make good hunters anymore. Pop. The gun will just have to stay half loaded, well at least until they get up there to scrunge it for ammo.
“How much longer?” Lipservice says over the shortwave. An actual eS in this situation is kind of asking for it, particularly if you can avoid it. Pepper is running up a few cars, attempting to take the turn and the final push around the incline towards the remaining two assassins.
“I’ve hacked the VI of one of the hunters. His eB isn’t really providing the information I would like it to have, but there is something of interest.” Pepper states back, pushing a few rounds into the rearview mirror in front of one of the hunters. The hunter yelps as glass shatters all around him, temporarily throwing him off stance.
“Which is?” Lipservice replies, while taking advantage of the opening.
“The people funding these hunters. Vii Ariable and Toro Abobo.”
“Together?”
“No. All I know is that the routing numbers belong to subsidiaries of subsidiaries of Abobo. Vii is a little bit easier to track.” Pepper throws a few bullets at the overhead lighting, which while not presently engaged, do provide an additional functionality of shattered plastic composite shards and fire-proofing foam. Pepper isn’t going to explain to Lipservice why Vii Ariable is so easy for him to track. Pepper isn’t sure how much he trusts the agent.
“How easy?” Lipservice runs up to where Pepper is hiding, with Apocalypse trailing only slightly behind, doing her best to shoot at least dangerously close to their assailants.
“Easy enough that you know it’s a trap.” Pepper says through a grin, nodding suggestively to Apocalypse. She smiles viciously.
“And the other.” Lipservice is loading his gun.
“About six hackers I know could figure it. I know the best of the best; he’s the real deal on this. I have some guesses, but I don't want to point fingers until I am ready to point pistols. We should hurry to Checktiza; I want my eggs in a manageable basket as soon as humanly possible.”
“Apocalypse, it’s time to take out the trash.” Pepper says through gritted teeth.
“Final-fucking-lee.” Apocalypse says with a snicker. They are standing directly behind a pretty big truck, a pickup electric on actual tires. To their left the central pillar of the building, a door leading to an elevator down and up, which they could take if they didn’t mind having to deal with shooting their way out of it later. Ahead is an incline filled with cars, hovers, and the same riddled with bullets. Two hunters, one relatively hurt. Pepper places one hunter left, about six cars up, and the other at the last car or so on the right. Technically both groups are at an impasse, without moving they cannot get the upper hand, but with moving they lose their edge until they reach killing distance. Whomever moves first must do so with a superior strategy. Strategy is Pepper’s bread and butter.
Apocalypse jumps over the truck, making a point to make it look like she was thrown ‘cheerleader’ style. She sprays bullets in a sweeping motion, left to right. The hunter on the left dodges down, but the one on the right has enough time to move and attempt to take the shot.
Pepper dashes right as Apocalypse leaps up, this places him directly in the line of sight of R.H. R.H. has a split second to decide what he wants to do, and he takes that second to shoot at Pepper. Pepper rolls out of the way and behind the next car on the right side of the incline.
L.H. has at this point righted himself to point his gun at Lipservice, who is running up the small space between the edge of the incline and where the cars park, doing his best high-speed tightrope along those cement things that keep someone from driving over the edge of a raised surface. Not that people ‘driving’ AI or even VI cars could possibly ever do something so pointlessly fucktarded.
Apocalypse rolls on her landing with literally no one watching her. She runs up the center of the incline for four cars before L.H. notices her. His gun swivels in her direction for an instant while his eyes watch Lipservice. R.H. also has eyes on Apocalypse, but Pepper is running up the right side as well. Knowing Pepper is a trained hunter, and a rather famous one amongst people who know such things, he trusts his compatriot to handle the girl.
Rapidly, L.H. attempts to take the shot on Apocalypse, who is getting a little too ballsy for his taste. Apocalypse, planning at least this far ahead, takes this moment to reveal her true nature and leaps about twenty feet into a roll. Movement this fast evades bullets intended for a typical non-combatant, placing her out of harm’s way temporarily. She is now about ten feet from R.H. Meanwhile, Pepper has dashed behind a car avoiding a barrage of bullets. Agent Lipservice took L.H.’s opening and placed six bullets in the man’s chest.
R.H. is now officially fucked. This is the tricky part. People who are officially fucked tend to act highly irrationally, even trained people who deal with fucking others on a frequent to semi-frequent basis. To learn and plan for the irrational nature of those who are with fuck is an art form. A tome of great length could be written on how best to handle those who are particularly fuck
ed, and for those in such situations where their sensitive orifices are within arm’s reach of a big cock/gun/fist/fist holding a gun, etc.
Peppermint White Ninja has had it both ways, and knows how to take charge of these situations. Basically you must act very quickly to diffuse the situation if your goal isn’t to kill the person in question. If that is your goal, you should shoot them as quickly as possible. Never shoot to maim, as it will only make your fuckee more irrational.
“Hey guy. I’m going to need you to ice up on me, real fast. I’d like not to have to kill you, is that something I can get you to do for me?”
“What?”
“Drop your fucking gun immediately. Sit down and we will talk, or we kill you. Clear?”
R.H. drops his gun and sits. Lipservice holsters his gun at his waist and grabs R.H.’s gun. Apocalypse stands in a more normal stance and walks up the ramp, she turns slightly when she rounds the corner. “I’m going to go get the car; you three have fun with your conversation. I want to get the hell out of here already, and you will need to be done when I get back here.”
“Deal.” Lipservice says through a reserved grin, throwing Apocalypse the keys to his cruiser. “Forth floor, the wireless will get you there from here. VI’s name is Aiko.”
“Right.”
“Now, who do you work for?” Pepper says as he sits cross legged in front of R.H.
“I’m a hunter, you know I can’t tell you that.” R.H. says exasperated, looking to Agent Lipservice for support, who just shrugs.
“Seventh rule of the hunt: You cannot be a hunter and a mercenary both.” Pepper says calmly. R.H. flinches involuntarily.
“What?”
“You are one of Vii Ariable’s men, don’t deny it.”
“How did you?”
“Please. I can’t believe my reputation has fallen so low in such a short period of time.” Pepper says through a grin, scratching arrantly at his dreadlocks.
“Haven’t you been retired for ten years?” Lipservice says, again with a shrug.
“Yes, I suppose it has been a while. I guess you are off the hook, R.H.”
“Actually, my name is-“
“Scratch that. Don’t care. Vii, why are you here attacking me for Vii?”
“He never tells us anything about that. Just that I was supposed to make sure I killed everyone but you. Then I was supposed to tell you something and make it sound like I didn’t intend on you knowing it.”
“You’re kind of terrible at this.”
“What?”
“You could have still carried out your mission correctly if you had just folded to my interrogation.”
“But you aren’t doing a very good job at interrogation.”
“Hmm. Well, you got me there.”
“Regardless. What did Vii want you to feed us?” Lipservice attempts to re-orient the conversation.
“Checktiza. He wanted me to send you to Checktiza. I don’t know why.”
A hover pulls up behind them, Apocalypse leans out of the passenger side window. “Get in or I’ll leave without you.”
“You can’t get that far, we still have to go to the roof and get the actual spaceship.” Lipservice says matter-of-factly.
“Yeah. That is already powered up.”
“How did you get into my ship?” Lipservice says with his eyebrows practically raised off of his head, he looks to Pepper who gets his turn to shrug.
“Keys.” Apocalypse grins.
“Oh. Right.” Lipservice says, getting up and dusting off the back of his slacks.
“Well, tell him that you told us the way you were supposed to. Otherwise he’ll kill you. My son has always been like that.” Pepper grunts as he stands, Lipservice sitting in the backseat.
“Your what?” R.H. yelps.
“Nevermind.” Pepper mutters getting into the passenger seat of the cruiser.
Cirrhosis gets punched in the gut. As far as punches in the gut generally go, pretty standard, not too hard, but hard enough to get the point across. The point being that Cirrhosis was not supposed to return to Torch unless he did so dead. Interrupting an ash scattering is a little beyond Destiny’s limited scope of revenge. Hell, the person who banished him didn’t even punch full strength. Destiny has been growing softer since the changing of the guard. Iced Mocha was never a man of particular violence or ego related clout. He was literally just the next in line when someone met the wrong end of an ‘unfortunate’ accident. Most people don’t even think Mocha did that, but that a rival gang killed his predecessor just to insure Mocha the spot to make THEIR lives easier.
“Ugh... Well, nice to see you.” Cirrhosis feigns pain, figuring it’s the least he can do. He is a guest and all.
“Yeah. What the fuck brings you here?” Iced Mocha says through gritted teeth, holding his right hand with his left. Managed to hurt himself somehow in the punching process. They really do not make gang members like they used to. Cirrhosis takes this moment to ‘struggle’ to his feet, what with the agony and everything. One of Mocha’s bodyguards is trying not to laugh.
“Business. Toro needs to know where he can find Code Name.”
“Everyone knows Code Name ditched Destiny when…” Iced Mocha frowns, his eyebrows pushing together in thought. Code Name left because Mocha is an incompetent simpleton and even sense-junkies get tired of looking bad in public.
“He was loyal, is what you are saying.” Cirrhosis fills in the blanks. Iced Mocha grins.
“Yeah. He was just a little bitch for Evans.”
“Evans did have that effect on people.” Evans was a total fucking psychopath, but at least he kept everyone in line. Cirrhosis is quite sure now that Iced had nothing to do with Code Name’s little disappearing act. He never really thought that Iced would have the ability to even attract the kind of talent that would allow a man to disappear into literally nothing. Alien technology is probably the only possible solution, and that kind of tech would be embargoed to death. The advanced races are barely allowed to dock their ships in Federali space, let alone sell fucking personal teleportation devices. Cirrhosis isn’t even sure such devices exist, in all actuality. He only came here because he wasn’t sure if Destiny had developed a shadow leader recently, basically if Mocha was a false front.
“Well, I’d hate to be you when you tell Toro this, but I haven’t seen that little shit since before you left.”
“Years then. Alright. Can I talk to Cannata a second?”
“That bitch?”
“Yeah. She was Code’s old girlfriend.” Total fucking lie.
“Sure, whatever. She’s upstairs counting money.”
“Typical.”
“Fucking tell me about it.”
The headquarters of Destiny is located under a bar, which is now called… Chiki Chiki’s Hot Box of Lox. Cirrhosis almost considered backing away from the door when Armor had lead him to the building. A restaurant set inside a starscraper, occupying the bottom five floors with an amalgam of faux wooden pillars painted with ‘weathered’ fuchsia paint. The wait staff is all women under the age of thirty wearing T-shirts with motion advert innuendos to boxes and fish. The lack of taste is palpable when Cirrhosis emerges from the ‘MGMT’ door next to the bathrooms. The hallway is covered in the photographic detritus of a hundred years of shitty dive-lite restaurants, holopaintings of historical figures; three-dee images of the shoes Sunshine Apocalypse wore on the set of He’s Just Not That Into You 16: The Rapture; a tavis jersey from someone who never even won a World Cup; the despair of the wintering of galactic culture made solid and oozed like a shiny gel across about forty thousand square feet of children screaming and parents attempting to relive a youth that never even existed for the people they idolize.
The main room is a sprawl of urban waste, which Cirrhosis tries to handle with the firm grin of a celebrity being interviewed by someone currently taking a shit in their pants. There is just a hi
nt of embarrassment for everyone around, and a general air of distaste. Luckily the bathrooms are by the kitchen, which leads to the actual management section of the restaurant. The kitchen is pretty typical for kitchens, even if the ‘chefs’ are all deep-frying onion pyramids or crop dusting everything in ranch dressing.
The manager’s door leads to a stairway, which goes up very steeply into a very large office. The office is in a corner, with windows aimed over the river. You could tell that the restaurant is a false front by the tasteful layout of the manager’s suite. All calm colors and subtle woodwork, a simple desk sitting by the window with bookshelves stocked with random novels and abstracted metal busts. Cannata is sitting at the desk, pushing around phantom numbers with her hands, appearing to conduct an orchestra. Cannata is a woman in her apparent twenties, but with the firm stare and clenched mouth of a woman ten times that age. This would be accurate. She is wearing her hair blond, cut into disheveled shards; her makeup is subtle and gray. Cirrhosis would probably consider dating her again, although he is quite aware she would never have him. He was a bit of an ass when he last saw her.
“Are you going to just stand there?”
“Possibly. Are you going to hit me again?”
“Dusty caps. Sit down; I imagine you are here for something important.” Cannata pleasures Cirrhosis with a smile. Cirrhosis sits in a leather chair across from Cannata. An authentic leather chair, filled almost to bursting with some sort of illegal bird stuff. Cirrhosis hadn’t noticed it right away, but anyone with an eye for the expensive would be able to tell that the things in this office only appear subdued. Ancient art pieces, original copies of novels, and a desk made of actual wood instead of a faux composite. Cirrhosis has found his shadow exactly where he thought it would be.
“You’ve been doing well for yourself.” Cirrhosis says mildly, Cannata tosses him a bottle of water from a refrigeration unit under her desk. Cannata was a woman on her way up the ranks when Cirrhosis last saw her. He assumed she would have been Mocha’s right hand by now, but she pulled the smarter route. Whomever is in charge of the money is the person who actually runs any organization.
“I get by.”
“Biding your time?” Cirrhosis says with a raised eyebrow, Cannata makes a brushing movement with her hands. Pushing away imaginary filth.
“Not hardly. Being in the limelight is nothing but extra work.”
“Heard you there.”
“Why are you here?”
“Code Name.”
“That liner? What do you want with him?”
“He stole something from my boss.”
“And you thought he stole it for Iced Mocha? Iced Mocha wouldn’t know his head from his ass, let alone be able to steal something, without already having been assassinated by now, from Toro Abobo.”
“That’s not what I am asking you.”
“You want to know if he stole it for me?”
“Something like that.”
Cannata stands up, walks around her desk slowly. She looks at her bookshelves purposefully, like she is taking inventory. She stands behind Cirrhosis and puts her hands on his shoulders. He isn’t sure whether or not he should feel a chill or a sexual buzz. She was always rather forceful, so with her it could often go both ways.
“Are you accusing me of being a thief?” She whispers directly into Cirrhosis’ ear, her voice full of venom. Cirrhosis is fighting an erection.
“I’m accusing you of hiring a thief.”
“Code is not a thief.” Cannata says levelly, her hands kneading his shoulders.
“Someone is though.”
“Clearly.”
“Something very major is going down. This kind of fence is not going to just float on the Dub-X market. No one could possibly get that much physical rico and the Federalis would zero anyone trying to transfer.”
“Again, clearly.” Her hands drift over his chest.
“So, I thought. Who would be able to handle such an elaborate bit of planning?” Cirrhosis says through a cough.
“Flattery was never an ability of yours.”
“Heh, right.”
“So you think I somehow gathered up this thing, what thing are we speaking of?”
“You know.” Cirrhosis mutters. Cannata pulls away, and sits on the desk in front of Cirrhosis.
“Toro didn’t even own that. Oh, but he was about to wasn’t he.” She is looking at the ceiling, spinning plans and numbers in her head.
“Exactly.”
“You are here, so you must have physically seen the theft. You believe it to be elaborate enough to involve someone of my particular… talents. You are aware of my proclivities against theft, yet you came directly to me. Hell, you are aware that I would never trust someone as unstable as Code to even wash my hover. Yet…” Her eyes drift to Cirrhosis’ crotch, and up to his eyes.
“I…”
“Alien Technology.” She says slowly, letting it drift through the air.
“What?” Cirrhosis stiffens his posture.
“You know about my collection. You were there when I started it.”
“Yes.”
“So you think I have something that does…”
“Teleportation.”
“What like a hover with a jump drive?” Cannata squints, giving Cirrhosis an uncomfortable level of eye contact. He shifts in his seat, his cock aching to be let free. She looks away slowly, closing her eyes completely. “No. You wouldn’t be here for that. Any jackass could convince a Tigeran to give it to them for enough rico, not even ‘officially’ off-limits.”
“Do you know where I could get something like that?”
“Jump to a place or jump to a free standing location. Is there a gate?”
“Could I find something that would allow me to jump, while running?”
Cannata’s eyes turn to Cirrhosis very quickly, searching his.
“No. Nothing a person could have directly on their person. The smaller drives still have containment requirements for the radioactive and magnetic drivers. The human physiology would be incapable of surviving the kind of forces required to harbor that sort of technology.”
“Is there something like that? Something that a human couldn’t use?”
“Not. That I know of. There are rumors that the Z’arkadar have something like that, but most actual dealers play this off as humans being incapable of discerning individuals in other races.” Cannata mumbles under her breath, her legs crossed on the table, her right foot grinding on Cirrhosis’ inner thigh.
“Not what I was looking for.”
“All I got is speculation. You saw Code Name vanish while you were chasing him.”
“Jumped out of a window into thin air, just disappeared. No chute, no gravlifter. He was just gone.”
“Smell like anything?”
“What?”
“Vapors? Any sort of odd smell? Ozone?”
“No. Not that I could think of.”
“I’d say this: The answer you are looking for is probably less elaborate than you are thinking it is. Do you recall what scientists in the old days used to put in equations when they didn’t understand something?”
“What? Like calling it magic or the will of God or something?” Cirrhosis imagines one of those old maps with a water dragon.
“Infinity. You are putting an imaginary number, a concept, where a real action, numbers, and motive sit. Usually what happens when you do not see the whole picture, when your formula is missing vital variables.”
“So you’re telling me to give up?”
“No. I am saying that we need more information to make an adequate guess of how Code Name did what you think you saw.”
“Think i-illusion?”
“You were in a metavision studio, where you not?”
“Hmm…” Cirrhosis looks down at the floor, Toro is going to kill him if he doesn’t figure this out, but his ideas are running south. C
annata taps her heel on her desk to get his attention, she at least appears sympathetic.
“Your sensivise data. You keep a live record correct?”
“My memory chip, yeah.” Anyone with dive wetware has a small microchip attached to their brain that stores memories as they are occurring, as to allow the rejuvenation process that keeps the population at an average age of thirty-two despite a birthrate below one per couple. This chip interacts with several other wetware items someone of Cirrhosis’ stature would have, which allows for him to give sensers to fans, run his eButler, dive the World, and to access his LJ.
“Send me that memory.”
“Give me a second to pull it up.” Cirrhosis leans back in the chair and closes his eyes. He queries his eButler to access the time period right after the net outage and right before he regained World access as he got outside of the tower. The access of memory data from a bit ago isn’t usually too hard for a VI to scan through, but giving it some markers usually helps speed up the process.
“What’s taking so long?” Cannata mutters irritated. Cirrhosis sits up very quickly, she widens her eyes. “Don’t tell me!”
“Hacked. My memory core doesn’t have a recollection of the time during the net outage at T-Net.”
“Someone blocked an entire building from World Access, and hacked the cores of at least one person but presumably everyone at the location.”
“Sure seems that way.”
“Fuck.”
“I know right.”
“Code Name was an okay hacker, but you and I both know this is on a level he wouldn’t have been able to hit.”
“Who then?”
“I have nothing for you on that. I doubt I’d even know a head who could hire me someone of that caliber. This is beyond the S-class hacks. However, I might be able to point you towards his fence.”
“What?” Cirrhosis about jumps out of his chair.
“About six hours I got pinged for a sale. A big one. Asked around, there are some people who’ve heard the call too. Tomorrow, on the D–est of L’s, something is being sold. Not so much sold as there is something to see and a concept to invest in. Everything in the message was garbled in jargon, almost unintelligible. An open cipher based on colloquial speech patterns—I’ve lost you haven’t I?”
“Not really the hacking type. Always been more of a shanker.”
“Why I loved you. Now, the point is that someone is attempting to simultaneously publicize and keep secret a meeting.”
“What the fuck kind of sense does that make?”
“Come on, you aren’t dumb. Pull it the fuck together.”
“The best things are secret things, but if they are really secret they aren’t popular. The point is to make it seem secret but in all actuality not be secret. If I wanted something to seem sexy and mysterious, I would tell the S-class, but make it seem like they found it out themselves.”
“Exactly.”
“I knew owning a club would eventually be worth it.”
“Sex wasn’t enough.”
“Meh.”
“Moving on. They are making a point of making it seem like they are trying to keep a secret, when they actually intend on everyone knowing about it.”
“Who? Who is doing this?”
“That’s the weird thing.”
“You don’t know?”
“No. I do know. Heavily encrypted IP bounces, but I turned a couple Frees at it, and I got a name. Vii Ariable.”
“Fucking figures. Vii was there that night; I don’t know why I didn’t think it would be him. Fuck, he even hacked my IP. He probably threw a worm in there while he was at it.”
“You’re getting lazy.” Cannata laughes, pushing at Cirrhosis’ stomach with her foot.
“Where should I go?”
“The gym?”
“The sale. Is this a physical event?”
“Has to be. There cannot be a cash exchange high enough to pay for what he has. Hell, cash probably won’t work either. I’d guess there is more to it than that.”
“Where?”
“Checktiza’s capital, Olm-tok, place called Unz Unz Unzt. Tomorrow at midnight.”
“I see. Are you going?”
“I was planning on sending someone. I can’t trust Mocha to run the show for even the afternoon.” Cannata says with a smirk, turning her head left and leaning back to check the time. Cirrhosis gets up, adjusting himself and turning to leave.
“However.” She says.
Cirrhosis turns slightly on his heel. Cannata in the sunset is a sight. Her strong features smoothed by the subtle play of dimming light, just before the street lights start blaring the life out of everything. A small circle appears in the corner of his vision.
“However?”
“This is becoming interesting. I don’t actually have any responsibilities per se; this is me keeping the doors open. The gears turning and everyone employed and working towards a common goal.”
“What’s the goal for a gang?”
“Gangs are businesses like anything else. That and I run the restaurant.”
“So you want to come with me then?” Begin sinking feeling here.
“How were you planning on getting to Checktiza in less than a day?”
“That is a good point.” Cirrhosis grins grimly. This is building into something not great. Toro wants the jewel, and Cannata wants the jewel. This ‘friendly’ act of ‘kindness’ is all a fucking joke. Cirrhosis remembers all too well that Cannata is not beyond betrayal and always holds a grudge. He was hoping that she would just kick him in the nuts and point him somewhat in the right direction. Best case scenario. This would be the worst case scenario.
“I’ll grab my coat.”