Chapter Eighteen - Gotcha

“Every niche has their celebrities. Every community has a few charismatic, or at the very least talented, individuals that everyone gets to know.

There’s just something about the people chosen to be Samurai that makes them stand apart.”

--Extract from a post on the PsychologyForever forums, 2036

***

“Alright, so what can you tell me?” I asked.

Stepping forwards, I started to weave my way through the scene, passing between the legs of the mercenaries and looking up at them from new angles. There wasn’t that much more to see, really.

“This and that,” Dial-Up said. “First, your girl here is using a cheap weapon. Twenty-Five points, it’s a rifle that fires guided micro-missiles.”

“Like the Hummingbird?” I asked.

“That’s an example, yes,” he said. “Though this one’s reloadable and a bit more reliable. Bit more expensive. You know how that works.”

“Alright.” I said. “What else?”

Lag was the one to step up, his feet clunking on the floor in contrast to my cat’s paws silent tread. “I’ve got nothing on these guys. Their gear is just about all aftermarket stuff. Sold to SWAT and some police units. You know the sort.”

I nodded. “And?”

“And this guy stands out.” Lag pointed to the one member of the group with the big backpack covered in high-tech gear. “That kind of equipment doesn’t come cheap, and it isn’t exactly mass-produced. I’m getting... about a thousand pings for sales in North America in the last half decade.”

I eyed the guy’s little antenna and heavy backpack, most of the details were covered in black cloth. “Can you pin-point the guy, then?”

“Not from that alone,” Lag said. He gestured again and a screen appeared next to him. Lists and information scrolling by faster than I could read. “See, these things aren’t meant for nice commercial uses. It’s the kind of equipment you’d give to an IRL hacker on a squad just like this.”

“Any Samurai with similar stuff?” I asked.

“Yes. Us,” Lag said. “The point is, as distinct as this thing is, it’s not going to be easy to trace. The people who buy this stuff make a point of that. But, this little guy was cheap.”

“Cheap how?”

Dial-Up chimed up. “Software. He used some custom software to shut down the CCTV systems they crossed. Nice stuff. Well coded. A bit of overkill for the level of tech this building has. Still, it left its mark. Purchased right over here, in the Cube.”

“So you can track it? Point to me who wrote the code?”

Lag and Dial-Up looked at each other.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I said. “Please tell me you’re not going to have me go on a fetch quest just for you to tell me who made it?”

“No, nothing like that. It’s just that there are rules. Unwritten rules, but rules nonetheless,” Lag said.

“Giving up a member of the Cube to someone else, at least, when it’s not a referral, is a bit taboo,” Dial-Up added.

“Aren’t you two the bosses here?” I asked.

They both shook their heads. “No bosses here,” Dial-Up said. “We’re heavy hitters, popular in our own way, and we have good reps.”

I bristled, then pointed with a paw--which was pretty damned difficult--to the wide-eyed still image of a girl. “And you’re not willing to risk that? Not even for her?”

The two stared at me. “Of course we are,” Dial-Up said. “Look at her. She’s a kid, she’s probably terrified. No one here should be selling anything to people that would kidnap a kid, regardless of if they’re a Samurai or not.”

“I’m PMing the coder now. He’s a kid by the name of Zoobreaker. Fourth circle,” Lag said.

“Think he’ll be able to point us in the right direction?” I asked.

“We can hope,” Lag said. “Most of the people here say that they don’t keep records of their sales, but that’s bull. You wouldn’t believe how many backdoors people fail to notice. It’s why this place is left alone.”

“I thought it’d be because of you two.”

Dial-Up shook his head. “We’re just two Samurai. Nothing too impressive in the grand scheme of things. The number of corporations we’ve extorted from here, or information that we leaked over the years, that would make all the protection of even two vet Samurai moot.”

“So why aren’t you being hassled then?” I asked.

“Oh, we get hassled all the time. You wouldn’t believe the amount of crap the media talks about us when they get the chance. But then we remind them that we can shut down just about all of their infrastructure. Even the biggest, most powerful corp, needs to be able to meet payroll.”

I grinned. “Nice. I like that. Probably better than my idea of a solution.”

“Walk in and shoot everyone?” Dial-Up asked. “That’s a lot of folk’s go to, at least in our line of work. It’s nice and cathartic, but it doesn’t work as often as you’d think.”

“Really?” I asked. “I’ve seen plenty of news feeds and stories about Samurai just kicking ass and taking names.”

Lag nodded. “We make sure that normal folk hear all the stories. That they know that we’re violent, but fair. The threat of violence is often a lot more useful than violence itself.”

Dial-Up nodded. “It helps when some of that respect we get is actually earned. Stopping incursions is nice, but those only happen once every month or two, and not often in the same time zone, let alone the same country.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” I said.

“Good,” Lag said. He raised an arm and tapped the side of his head, making a hollow clunking noise. ‘Just got a PM back from Zoobreaker. I think we have our suspects.”

The room shifted again, turning from the corridor where McCarthy was kidnapped into the interior of a spaceship. “Damn. Warn a girl before you do that, would you?” I asked as I looked up and around. There were a bunch of consoles with weird chairs by them, and a lot of old-timey computer screens and big archaic buttons.

“Is this the Enterprise?” Daniel asked.

Dial-Up nodded. “It is. Lag, on the screen?”

Lag nodded and soon the front of the bridge, which had a nice view into outer space, flickered and was filled with a website’s front page.

The Hour Men
Your Target Dead in an Hour or Less!

“Is that really their tagline?” I asked. The side had a bunch of generic images, and some boring links above, like ‘Products’ and ‘Locations’ in bold.

“Looks like it,” Lag said. “They’re pretty open about what they do, but that’s normal on the dark web these days. You need to be loud.”

“They have a testimonials section,” I pointed out.

Dial-Up shrugged. His eyes were flicking this way and that as he replied. “They have great reviews on Yelp.”

I jumped to the captain’s seat and spun around to sit while facing the front. The better view allowed me to see more of their screen. “So are they the ones?”

“Can’t tell,” Lag said. “The server their site’s on has nothing else on it. The owner of the server... has been dead for twelve years. I can’t find anything in the site’s code. It’s all pre-purchased stuff, bought on credit that was later reported missing. They’ve covered their tracks well.”

“So how do I get to them and find McCarthy.”

“Oh, they won’t have her,” Dial-Up said. “Not these guys. They probably brought her and her dog somewhere else.”

“For fuck’s sake,” I muttered. “Can you tell me where?”

Lag hummed, then shook his head. “Nope. Tracing their vehicles leads to a parking garage, then the trail goes cold. I could get you a list of employees, but none of them had phones or augs that tracked their motions across the city yesterday. At least, none of those I suspect were on that mission.”

“Then... what should I do?”

Dial-Up grinned. “You were looking forward to using a bit of violence to solve things, right? Because we have an address IRL.”

“So, I can ask them in person?” I asked. “Yeah, yeah, I think I can do that.”

“We’ll try to give you a hand,” Lag said. “You’re a stealth specialist, right? We can probably cut the power to the entire block.”

“Wouldn’t that just alert them all?” I asked.

Lag shrugged. “My body is a one hundred and eighty ton tank. I don’t do stealth.”

Fair enough. “Okay. Okay yeah, I can do that.”

***

RavensDagger

I recently posted this, and a few other, stories on Neovel. It's a newish web-serial site. I... wouldn't comment on it here, except the owner of the site helped me transfer everything over, and he was so passionate about his project that I figured I'd give the site a shout-out. It's still very new, and nearly empty of content for now, but it looks really pretty. Check it out if you're inclined!