Nyx Smith - Fade to Black

"I'm impressed," L. Kahn said flatly, his voice a monotone, "Your fixer has influence. Now that you've gotten me here, what have you to say?"

"We got a problem."

"I have no problems whatsoever. You have my package. Your next step is to move that package, as per my instructions."

"Wrong," Rico said. "That ain't the next step."

Ravage's head shifted just slightly, as if she were flicking a glance at L. Kahn from behind her black shades. Rico couldn't help the tension that suddenly shot through his gun arm. His nerves were jumping. L. Kahn remained impassive, icy. He said, "I suggest that you explain."

Rico nodded, slowly, and said, "The man wants assurances. -He wants to know where he's going."

"That is irrelevant," L. Kahn replied. "You were informed that this job is a recovery. I'm sure that by now you've confirmed the background history I provided, so you're well aware of where the subject was employed prior to being kidnapped by the competition. Need I say more? Do the math. Have the subject do the math himself and he'll see quite plainly where he's going."

"That ain't good enough. The man wants proof."

"What sort of proof would he like? A banner hung over Manhattan? A notice on the newsnets? This is absurd. You're scamming for more money."

Rico clenched his teeth. "Money's got nothing to do with it, hombre. The man wants direct communication with his old boss. He wants the word direct. Proof positive."

L Kahn's expression seemed to harden. "That is impossible. As you well know."

"That's what the slag wants."

"At our first meeting, you accused me of playing dangerous games. I now say the same to you. The price for the run is fixed. If you bargain any further, you're bargaining for your life. And you will lose the negotiations. That is a promise."

This was going nowhere. Rico saw that clearly. L. Kahn had as much as told him that Surikov was bound for Fuchi Multitronics. But that was as much as he'd get. No one would provide proof. That might serve as incriminating evidence should anything go wrong.

This was the Sixth World. Image was everything.

"The other problem is time," Rico said. "The heat's on. I got the man in a safe place. I don't wanna move him till the sec forces're off the street."

"You find corporate posturing, intimidating."

"Maybe you want me to spit on you again."

Ravage tensed visibly.

L. Kahn lifted a hand, as if to hold her in check. To Rico, he said, "I'm prepared to accord you a degree of latitude on the basis of your connections and your reputation. You're now pushing at the limits of my patience. I will admit that the safety of the package is paramount. If you want time, I will grant it. Twelve hours. By the end of that period, the streets should be clear of corporate forces. That is when we will conclude our business. There will be no further delays. Do you understand?"

"I got it, amigo."

"Very good."

L. Kahn got back inside the limo. Rico waited, watching Ravage. The cutter shifted half a step toward him but Rico had his Predator II hi hand, the red dot of a targeting sight centered on Ravage's chest before she could finish the movement.

"Be seeing you," she whispered.

Rico bared his teeth in a grin.

The atmosphere inside the Command Control vehicle was hushed. Colonel Butler Yates stood at the head of the control section in the rear of the vehicle. He had been there almost twenty minutes, silent and glaring, rapping his swagger stick against his leg, as if to remind everyone of his presence.

Doubtless, he also stood there to remind everyone that the Executive Action Brigade could not afford another frag-up. They had lost track of their targets twice already. A third such incident would likely cost them their contract.

Bobbie Jo felt the pressure intensely. She sat facing her console with a face like stone, but no amount of will or attempt at self-control could stop the sweat from trickling under her arms or from making her hands greasy and slick. The loss of the recee drone during the runners' escape from Mott Street had cost the brigade a small fortune, and the emotional cost to her had still not been tallied. The spiraling dive of the drone had brought her back in an instant to a cloudless day over Tampico in what had then been called Mexico. A heat-seeking missile slammed through her tail. What was left of her Federated-Boeing Eagle went ballistic, spiraling down at Mach Two into an Aztlan oil refinery.

Her legs, like her ride, like the whole damn government of Mexico, were broken to bits and burned almost to ashes. She might have gotten new legs but for the damage to her spine and connecting nerves. The price tag for complete reconstructive surgery was almost beyond comprehension.

If she could just stick with the Brigade long enough, two more years, maybe three, she might manage to get the ante together.

She jerked when a hand touched her shoulder.

"Stand by for launch," Skip said, quietly.

Bobbie Jo nodded, wiped her hands on her blue Brigade jumpsuit for the twentieth time, then lifted the wire lead from her console to the datajack in her temple.

Jacking into the sensor feed of a Gaz-Niki GNRD-101 Scorpion struck Bobbie Jo like the thought of flying an Eagle blind. It scared the drek out of her. Suddenly she saw the world from about five centimeters above the ground. She could see left and right and straight ahead, and up, but nothing to her rear unless she turned her body to look. Her body had become articulated, and long and flat, with four sets of spidery legs, two multi-functional manipulator arms that looked a lot like pincers, and a tail, a sort of stinger, with special integral devices. She could hear a Brigade operative whispering, "Ground Nine in position," from somewhere behind her, but most of all she could feel the vibrations running through the ground, the passing near and far of hundreds of vehicles and perhaps thousands and thousands of people, all moving through the South Terminal of Newark International.

Any one of these people could crush her articulated body beneath their heels. The Scorpion was not built to take punishment. It had no weapons and no armor. It was about thirty centimeters long.

Defenseless. Impotent.

"Go, Bobbie Jo," Skip was murmuring into her ears. "Do it."

She scuttled forward, pushing the Scorpion to max. The wheel of a Mitsubishi Runabout seemed to loom up ten stories higher than her head. The chassis of the car, now passing over her, looked like the ceiling of some immense chamber, criss-crossed by massive supports and gigantic conduits and pipes.

The red winking blip of a target indicator kept drawing her ahead, from one car to the next, one row of parked cars to another. She wrenched herself aside when an enormous pair of human feet suddenly slammed to the ground directly ahead of her. She raced back into the shelter beneath a car when a turbocharged Westwind 2000 came bearing down on her at lightning speed. She hesitated only an instant when a gleaming red schematic overlay flashed in front of her sensor view, outlining the mottled black and dull green Landrover van before her.

Two meters more and she was under the runners' van-fast as a devil rat. Her audio pickup snatched voices out of the air, first, the runner's leader, then the fixer L. Kahn, saying,"… the streets should be clear of corporate forces. That is when we will conclude our business. There will be no further delays. Do you understand?"

"I got it, amigo."

A beeping sounded rapidly in her ears. Her target indicator soared to the underside of the van. She flicked her segmented tail upward, thrusting up high on her hind legs. The tip of her tail twitched, just once. The dab of cyanoacrylate glue that spat from her tail stuck to the chassis of the van and hardened instantaneously. The micro-miniaturized transponder injected into the glue would be virtually undetectable until commanded to awaken.