Anthology - From the Street

The silver-haired man pressed the nozzle of his gun deep into Cassowary's temple, right on a bruise. Cassowary winced.

"You were also going to be shot in the head, if Leadhead or Spindle got to you first."

"500 is fine," Cassowary gasped. "Great."

Thursday, 3:35 am

Cayman had told Alex there was one more stop before he'd call the job done. Alex half-expected – more than half, really – that the last stop involved him, the Snoqualmie River, and a significant quantity of concrete. He didn't ask where they were going, or any other question, since Cayman hadn't responded well to any remarks from him except to say that the 500 Nuyen for Cassowary was coming from Alex's portion of the money for the job.

They walked through a weathered wooden doorway beneath a burnt-out neon sign. A few patrons sat around a bar that was a piece of plywood lying across stacked plastic buckets. Most of the customers were asleep. A bartender watched trideo in the back, waiting for someone to wake up and place an order.

Suddenly, Cayman started talking. "You should've known this already. Duster should've told you. I don't like having to play teacher, but here it is. You take in as much information as you can get. You give out as little as possible. You make sure what you're getting is good and complete. You understand?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, yeah, until you get drunk again. Let me show you something." He pulled out a knife, not quite as honed as the Cougar fineblades on Alex's cutters, but still plenty sharp. Alex reflexively tightened his abdominal muscles, as if that could hinder the blade.

Cayman raised the blade, whirled it a half turn in his hand, and spiked it down into the hand of a man slumped at a nearby table. The man screamed, raising his head. It was Doc Holiday.

No one else in the bar moved.

Cayman turned to Holiday and waited patiently for the screams to subside into whimpers. Then he spoke.

"You were supposed to give me complete specs on the arm," he said evenly. "It would have been nice to know about the retractable knife." He glanced down at the knife sticking straight up, embedded in the table beneath the man's hand. "Knives you don't know about can be a problem." He turned and walked out. Alex tried to make a gesture that said "I'm sorry, I had no idea we were coming to stab you, perhaps I could have done something about it had I known," then followed Cayman out.

Cayman was in mid-sentence, resuming his lecture to Alex. "… foolish enough to work with you again. Information is food. Eat all you can and only crap out what's bad. Keep the good stuff inside."

Then he let Alex go home.

by Anthony Bruno

August, Saturday 11th 2063 – 02:35

The night was as dark as coal but the freeway was well lit, and the Eurocar Westwind was speeding up to a hazardous 150 kph on the Autoroute-50. The driver would have been glad to push the pedal to the metal, but the French Gendarmerie had built a reputation on clamping down heavily on highway jockeys; there had been too many frenzied riggers on the French Riviera roads in previous years, wreaking havoc among the sometimes dense traffic. It wasn't good for France's image, and repulsed tourists.

Except that for now, Laurent Artaud didn't give a frag. He was fleeing from enemies that concerned him far more than the police, driving via the sports car's virtual dashboard, jacked in the onboard computer. He was tired, but at least he didn't have to hold the wheel. For the hundredth time he tried to call Celine or Nolwenn, to no avail.

He was now leaving behind him the war harbor of Toulon, which was sheltering most of France's naval fleet. Above the dark waters of the Mediterranean Sea, lights were twinkling as helicopters were flying to and fro between the ships gathered around the Valery Giscard-d'Estaing aircraft carrier and the land-based facilities.

They'll be leaving soon to join EuroForce operations in the Aegian Sea… there's no doubt the Marine Nationale is feeling nervous, Artaud thought.

As he was driving fast westwards through the easternmost parts of the Marseille sprawl, he tried to recollect the events of the night.

Monsieur Dupont had hired them through their regular fixer, a troll named Marius, an ex-mafioso from the Marseille Milieu and famous arts dealer. Nothing exceptional, they just had to find a specific file at a specific date on the personal computer of a corporate yuppie. The only problem was that the place would be so crowded that they would never have a chance to insert a decker. Plus, they had no idea where the computer would be. And naturally, they couldn't just steal it. They could have decked the place's host from the outside, but the inner security systems and the doors' maglocks were rigged with a CCSS system and not connected to the PLTG. It sounded hard, but in fact it was Laurent Artaud's specialty. He was an ork in his mid-thirties, and that made him very old for one of his kin indeed. But great age meant great experience, and experienced he was. Although he was an ork, he was well-educated, very clever, and a highly social person. And sometimes, fast talk and charisma worked where blazing guns or even stealth could only fail.

So there they were, in front of the Casino de Monte-Carlo, while the Grand Tour events were in full swing in the free city of New Monaco and the security thicker than black IC on a Z-OG glacier. Every summer, the Grand Tour went for weeks throughout several of Europe's social hotspots, gathering the corporate, political and cultural elite of the Old World as well as some figures from over the Pond, especially some famous ones boasting an aristocratic heritage. This was the perfect cover of social events to conduct backroom agreements and strike deals among aristos, corp execs or politicians. It also drew media sharks by the dozens, getting 24-hour coverage on some of the specialized trid channels.

Celine was at Laurent's side as they were crossing the gardens surrounding the luxurious building. Her role was perhaps the most dangerous: she would have to plug a miniature satellite dish onto the computer, allowing their decker, a young elven woman from Nantes street-named Nolwenn, to access the files. It would probably take only a few seconds, then she could get the dish back and walk out as if nothing had ever happened. Nolwenn was safe in a Renault-Fiat Eurovan, parked a few blocks away. She could follow Laurent's and Celine's moves through the micro-cameras set in his tiepin and her necklace. Accompanying the decker in the vehicle was the team's magician, a German witch with a disturbing, gloomy demeanor. His name was Kern, and he would provide astral overwatch for them all, leaving a spirit to watch the van. The whole place was warded, but he had managed to bypass it by attuning his aura to the magical barriers.

As the couple was stepping up the large stairs leading to the front door, going through the two discreet but very present and efficiently manned checkpoints, they were aware of the various security and surveillance devices scanning them. Artaud tried to remember who had once said that Casino security was like an onion: layer after layer after layer, and the more you peeled it back, the more you wanted to cry.

Artaud stirred in his seat, and sighed. He would soon reach the outskirts of Dragonville proper: there, he would be safe. Or at least safer.

They had walked inside after presenting the invitations Marius provided them. I got them from a friend who's a regular, so null sweat guys, he'd said. You're supposed to be a high-ranking exec from ESUS's PR department and her husband. Artaud prayed this was true. They went in without further complications, taking a first glance at the gigantic hall. It was crowded with the creme of Europe's elite. While heading to the back of the room, Artaud spotted at least five members of the Royal Family of Orange, including Queen Amalia, Saeder-Krupp rep at the New European Economic Community Julian Sergetti as well as French Minister of Culture Thierry Lang. Artaud wasn't sure, but he also thought he saw the beautiful Ga‘lle de Rohan before she got lost in the crowd. Few people knew yet that she had a romance with a recent expatriate from North America who was none other than Aithne Oakforest. And the king of the hill, the lord of the city, Spinrad Industries CEO Johnny Spinrad was surrounded by Sol Media and DeMeko paparazzis while ending his thanks speech.