House of the Sun

10

My fingers were trembling slightly as I slipped the optical chip into the reader slot of the doss's ancient telecom. Trying not to let myself hope too hard, I ran a directory of the chip's contents. A single file-BARNARD.TXT. Pretty fragging self-descriptive, neh? I rattled in the command to copy the file under another name-in case there was some kind of protective virus that would delete the original if someone jacked with it-then tried to open the copy, not the original.

The screen filled with a flurry of graphical symbols- happy-faces, Greek characters, and such drek-and the speaker fired off a fusillade of beeps. Well, that wasn't so hard to predict, was it? The file was encrypted, encoded so a curious third party-like me-couldn't read it.

Okay. Now the question was, how "robust" was the encryption? There are thousands of ways of encrypting a file; maybe a dozen are in widespread use. Of this dozen, they range from theoretically unbreakable (practically speaking, there's no such thing as totally unbreakable encryption) all the way down to as insecure as a safe door sealed with nothing but masking tape. My next step would depend entirely on the kind of encryption Barnard had selected for his message.

(Now hold the phone a tick. Didn't the fact that there was a message at all tell me something? If the whole "message delivery" scam was just camouflage, why bother… But no, that didn't hang together. Barnard had no guarantee that I wouldn't scan the chip before delivering it. There had to be something there to set the mind of the Trojan horse at ease.)

I scrolled back up to the beginning of the encrypted file and examined the header-that string of bytes that basically tells decryption/display software, 'This is a message encrypted so, and here's where it begins," I connected my personal 'puter to the telecom's dataport, and let another one of Quincy's busy-beaver programs loose on the header.

The results showed up on the portable 'puter's small screen, and I cursed. Public-key encryption, with a 70-bit key code. It could have been worse… but not much.

I don't know how much you savvy public-key encryption, but it's a slick little system that's been around for nigh on eighty years now. Everyone who uses the system has two key codes (both 70 bits long, in this implementation, equivalent to a 22-digit number): a private key that he tells no one and a public key that he can tell all and sundry, or even publicize. The way the system is most commonly used today in 2056, if Adolf wants to send a secret message to Barney, Adolf encrypts the message using two keys: his own private key and Barney's public key. To decrypt the message, Barney uses two keys: his private key and Adolf's public key. Theoretically, only Barney can read the message, since only Barney knows his private key. (Well, duh.) As an added bonus, he knows it had to come from Adolf-or, at least, that it had to have been encrypted using Adolf's private key- otherwise it wouldn't have decrypted properly. Clear as mud? Good, then we'll continue.

The point is that, according to the cryptographic theories in fashion when the public-key system was developed and for thirty-odd years thereafter, it was theoretically impossible to crack a public-key system within the projected life span of the universe. Theories have changed, though-they tend to do that. Today, some bright sparks claim that using Eiji recursion and other bits of black art, it's possible to crack a 70-bit code in a couple of days of churning on a fast enough computer. Which is why few people bother with anything less than an 85-bit code as of 2056. (Should the fact that Barnard plumped for a less secure system tell me something? Or was I still reaching…?)

The upshot? It should be possible for a nova-hot cryptographer to bash through Barnard's security in somewhere between twenty-four and seventy-two hours. The problem?

I was fresh out of nova-hot cryptographers at the moment. With a sigh, I remembered some of the resources I had access to back in Seattle. Rosebud the dwarf, a quasi-legal technomancer with computing power equivalent to a MultiVAX installed right in her braincase. And, for bigger challenges, the ex-decker called Agarwal… no, he was dead now, wasn't he? Deeper sigh.

Here, out in the middle of the fragging Pacific? Nobody, chummer. Still deeper sigh. (Okay, okay, don't say it, I know: I could do it all virtually, spew it all through the matrix to whatever decrypt artist struck my fancy, all without leaving my doss, yattata yattata yattata. In principle, true. But when your life's on the line, chummer, sometimes you really want the hands-on control that only a face-to-face can give you. You scan? So get off my back.)

Moral of the story? I had to find the nova-hot cryptographer I needed, using the limited resources I had. Which meant, sad to say, Te Purewa, and that was about it. Deepest sigh.

The pseudo-Maori was better than nothing, but he definitely wasn't the drek-hot resource I'd hoped for. From the way Scott had introduced him, I'd figured him for a part-time fixer. What did they call them around here?-kalepa, that was it-with a stable of contacts. No banana on that one, chummerino. He was SINless, true, surviving by doing odd jobs and getting paid under the table… so by some people's measure, that made him a shadowrunner. He did know a few fixers, but only socially-or so I gathered. Translation? He was in the shadows, but not of them, if you see the distinction. He might have met some people with the skill-sets I was looking for, but he might not have known it.

Still, he was the only entree into the Honolulu shadow community I had at the moment. If I could figure a way of getting him to put the word out-while keeping it from the various and assorted hard-men who wanted to see me dead-I'd have to do so. That was going to take some thought… which, in turn, was going to require some sleep. My brain was soya-paste. I reached out to power down the telecom…

Then stopped. What the hell, I might as well check my blind maildrop while I was at the keyboard. It didn't seem particularly likely that Argent or Sharon Young had gotten back to me already, but it was worth a look. Using the nicely hidden back door that Quincy's gofer had installed in HTC's system, I accessed my datamail box and requested a directory listing.

Wonder of wonders, there was a message there: voice, not just text. No name-predictably, and the originator address was one of the many anonymous remailer services that thrive in the Carib League. Curious, I keyed playback.

"Mr. Montgomery, we need to talk."

My left hand flashed out and hit the Pause key almost hard enough to crack the macroplast enclosure. Ah, drek… how the frag had he tracked me down already?

The voice was Jacques Barnard's, of course, the slag who'd gotten me into this nasty mess and who no doubt now wanted me out of it… permanently and terminally. For a moment I stared at the telecom with real fear.

Then I fought back that emotion and snorted with absolute disgust at my reaction. What the' frag did I think? that Barnard was going to crawl out of the fragging telecom if I played back the rest of the message? Get a fragging grip, Montgomery. (More evidence that my reactions were fragging shot, part of my mind nagged. Shut the frag up, another part of my mind told the carping mental voice.) I reached out again and keyed Rewind, then Play.

"Mr. Montgomery, we need to talk." The recording was as crystal clear as if Barnard were in the same room-no static, no sound degradation. One of the advantages of being able to afford the best corp-class datalines, no doubt. "I'm very concerned with events, and with your response to them, Mr. Montgomery," he went on coldly. "I need you to make contact now. I need you to tell me the exact details regarding the demise of… of our mutual friend. I'm disappointed that you have not seen fit to get in touch with me and wonder whether I should interpret your actions as evidence of complicity in the… the events. You may contact me at your earliest convenience using the provisions already established. We have things to discuss and further actions to schedule."

Barnard's voice paused, then continued icily. "I do expect to hear from you soon, Mr. Montgomery. Do I make myself clear?" With a click the recording ended.

I glanced at the telecom's blank screen. What the fragging hell was I supposed to make of that'? If I were to take Barnard's message at face value, he didn't know the whys and the wherefores of the hit on Tokudaiji any more than I did. If I were to believe him, his impulse-and a very natural one it was, too-was to wonder if I hadn't pulped Tokudaiji myself, for my own reasons. If I were to believe him, he was asking me to come back into the light so he could debrief me on Tokudaiji's death and so we could plot out our logical next move.

If. That was the operative word, wasn't it? If I believed him, he wanted me to come into the light so he could do damage control. If I didn't believe him, he still wanted me to come into the light so he could do damage control… by blowing my brains out. Why were these things never easy and clear-cut?

Well, at least I didn't have to make a decision at the moment. Mr. Jacques Barnard, Yamatetsu veep, wouldn't be going anywhere, would he? I could take some time and think through the consequences. 1 could also try and get his message to Tokudaiji decrypted and see if that led me anywhere. For the moment, though…

I slumped back on the bed and tried to sleep.

There was more to this Barnard message than I'd considered, wasn't there?

The air in my face was refreshing as hell as I rode "my" Suzuki Custom toward Cheeseburger in Paradise, and it helped blow away the mental cobwebs and lingering remnants of nightmares. Cruising at sixty klicks, the air temperature was almost bearable. When I stopped for lights or traffic, though, the streets of Ewa felt like radiators, or maybe sophisticated cooking surfaces dedicated to the preparation of grilled haole. The bike's little petrochem engine sang and hauled hoop when I cracked the throttle. (Somebody told me that as little as sixty years ago, there was no way you could crank 100 horsepower out of a 250cc engine. Maybe some things have improved with time after all.)

As I weaved through the slow midafternoon traffic, I frowned. Barnard had gotten a message to me… and the fact that it was in my secured datamail box was a message in itself, wasn't it? I'd only given that address to two people: Argent and Sharon Young. Argent would rather chew his own leg off than help Yamatetsu Corporation with anything, I knew that. That left Young…

… Who, now that I thought about it, had been on Barnard's fragging payroll back in Cheyenne. Frag! I'd known that; Barnard had told me so himself, indirectly: The contract Young offered me was related to this whole Hawaiian cluster-frag. And I had given my secure datamail box address to Young… and thus, indirectly, to Barnard. If I made it out of this thing in one piece, without fragging something up so badly I got myself geeked, I'd dance a fragging jig, I swear it

I parked the littie Suzuki in the alley behind Cheeseburger in Paradise and jandered into the tavern. I guess my two visits qualified me as a regular, because the chip-tusked bartender started to draw me a half-liter of dog the moment he saw me. As I took what had become my regular table, Maletina brought the frosty glass over and put it down in front of me. For a wonder, she didn't look as though she wanted to kick me in the pills today. Hell, she even talked to me: 'Te Purewa say he be by later. Got some people you wanna meet, maybe."

I thanked her and smiled sweetly… even though I really wanted to swear a blue streak. So Te Purewa was coming in later with some people I wanted to meet, huh? I'd asked him over the phone if he could put out some feelers-very subtly-to see if he could track down a decrypt artist who could handle a 70-bit public-key job. Apparently he'd gotten busy on it right away…

… And then he'd told the fragging waitress about it. Slot! Who else had he told? His girlfriend? The slag who cut his hair? The yak soldier who lives down the street…?

My first instinct was to cut and run, to bail out of Cheeseburger in Paradise and never come back. Short-term survival-wise, it probably was the smartest thing I could do… but I had to take the long view as well. I needed the decrypt artist. And, more important, I needed who the decrypt artist knew. Any code-slicer capable of handling a 70-bit would have to have better contacts with the real shadow community than Te fragging Purewa. Thus 1 needed to hang chill at the tavern. So my logic went at the moment, at least.

That didn't mean I had to make myself a big, glowing haole target, of course. I gave the place the once-over, a closer visual scan than I had to this point. Keeping in mind that this was a watering hole in one of the badder parts of town, and that it had a rep as a borderline shadow hang-out.

Yes, there it was, I was sure of it. The security camera whose fish-eye lens could cover the entire floorspace, mounted in the (apparendy nonfunctional) smoke/dust precipitator over the bar itself. Like the cameras in most places like this, it was out of obvious view, to remove a very real temptation. When gutterpunks get into their cups, obvious security cameras often seem to be interpreted as an invitation to small-arms target practice.

A surveillance camera, of course, implied someplace to view the surveillance data. Taking my half-liter of dog with me, I made my way over toward me bartender.

Have you ever spent two hours watching a tavern through a distorting fish-eye lens while drinking Black Dog beer in a windowless room with no ventilation or air-conditioning on a hot tropical day? Let me save you the trouble. You can get exactly the same effect by driving twenty-centimeter nails into your temples, and you won't even have to pay for me beer.

I rubbed at my eyes and massaged my throbbing temples. The bartender had been incredibly understanding when I'd asked to use his office-after I'd shown him the balance on my credstick, of course-and I did feel a frag of a lot safer watching for Te Purewa via electronic intermediaries. But at the moment, if a yak had come in and prepared to blow my head off, I'd have thanked him, since I was out of aspirins.

Okay, looking on the bright side, I did have a much better feel for the tavern's clientele. Take those two, for instance. Over in a darkened corner was an overweight, middle-aged man wearing a thick toupee… oops, sorry, I guess the socially acceptable term is "alternative hair," isn't it? He was making a long, drawn-out-and probably pointless-attempt to hit on a bored-looking biff who I reckoned sported a pair of "alternative breasts." And over there were two kids, obviously underage but trying to look mature, while they almost avoided staring at the dancer giving herself a gynecological exam on the stage. And there, nearer the door, was an older native woman-bird-thin, fragile-looking in the same way as Tokudaiji-ignoring the drink on the table in front of her as she stared off into space. (Well, from this angle, it looked as if she were staring right into the camera lens, as a matter of fact. Coincidence, of course, but still creepy.)

The front door of the tavern swung open. The light level wasn't enough for any details to show on the security system, but I could make out three relatively large silhouettes. Te Purewa and his chummers? The three figures moved forward into the light, and I was seriously glad I'd invested in this vantage point.

Japanese, they were. Humans, all of them, but any one of them could have applied for promotion to troll at any point. They wore conservative business suits. Their augmented eyes glinted unnaturally on the screen as they looked around the barroom.

Frag, couldn't these guys have tried for at least some local color? The closest thing to conservative business fashion around the Cheeseburger in Paradise was a tailored black leather armored jacket. Still, I shouldn't really be complaining, should I? If the yak soldiers-what the frag else could they be?-had bothered with camouflage, I might not have seen them coming. I congratulated myself for my foresight in setting myself up back here. If the yaks even thought to check the back room, I'd have plenty of warning. I'd be able to bail out the back door, hop on my Suzuki and lay rubber before they'd even talked their way past the bartender. Perfect, right?

If it was so goddamn perfect, how come the door behind me burst open, and somebody yelled, "Ice, hoal" at me?

I spun in my chair, trying to haul out the Manhunter Te Purewa had provided. But I was staring into the muzzles of two large-caliber weapons, and instantly gave up on that pursuit. I showed empty hands and tried a tentative, "Okay, let's chill here, huh?"

It took me a long second or two to notice the slags behind the big guns. They weren't yak hitters as I'd expected… or if they were, then the Hawai'i yakuza has gotten a lot more behind affirmative action with regard to women and kawaruhito then their mainland cousins. The figure on the left was an ork with even bigger shoulders man Scott. He wore jeans and a sleeveless black learner vest a few sizes too small for his armored-and-bodysculpted torso. To his right was a woman-ork too, but whip-slender, with steel cord muscles. She wore dark pants and an aloha shirt, but the shirt's pattern was a pretty fragging good approximation of urban camo, I noticed. Both had their pistols-nasty big fraggers-Savalettes with a gleaming chrome-steel finish- leveled at my head.

"Clear your weapon," the woman snapped. "Two fingers. Do it!"

I did it-what the frag else was I supposed to do?- pulling out the Manhunter between the thumb and forefinger of my left hand. I dropped it to the floor and kicked it toward the two gillettes.

To my amazement, they relaxed visibly the moment I did, safing their own weapons and holstering them. I felt my mouth gape open, and the man chuckled as he scooped up my pistol. "Hey, shaka, brah, we just didn't want you doing nothing hasty, you scan?"

"We're chummers of Marky," the woman added. It took me a moment to twig to who "Marky" was-Mark Harrop, aka Te Purewa.

With a sharp inclination of her head she indicated the security screen-and, by implication, the yak soldiers. "You want to come with us, or wait for them?"

"Lead on, hoa," said I in heartfelt tones. As I rose to my feet, I glanced back at the screen. The older woman in the barroom was still staring into the camera, and for a disturbing moment I felt as though she was staring right into my skull.

As soon as we were out of the office, into the narrow hallway that led to the alley, the woman indicted her companion and said, "He's Moko. I'm Kat."

"I'm-" I began.

But she cut me off sharply. "Ice that, hoa. Know all I need to know. You're a chummer of Marky, that's good enough, huh?" She glanced at Moko and got a nod of acknowledgment. Suitably chastened-one of these days I've really got to get myself a street handle-I nodded, too.

As if an afterthought, Moko tossed me back my Manhunter, I felt the way a kid must when getting his security blanket back from the laundry. I shoved it back into my waistband.

Out into the alley we went. There were two new bikes there, parked next to mine. A Yamaha Twin-Turbine Rapier II-one of the newest rice-rockets. Driven by two contra-rotating gas turbines, it looked as lean and sharp and downright lethal as… well, as a rapier, I suppose. Next to it was a big, brutal Honda Viking mega-hog painted a nasty matte black with blood-red trim. Instinctively, I played "match the bike," pairing Moko with the Viking, Kat with the Rapier.

And got it totally back-assward. Moko swung aboard the lean-lined Rapier and fired up the engine with a high-pitched whine. Kat, meanwhile, was pulling on a full-face helmet and a riding jacket angular with body armor. (Moko's sole concession to riding safety was to button his sleeveless vest shut across his bulging pecs.) A moment later, Kat was astride the Viking-not so much "astride," actually, as "nestled in the guts of"-and she hit the starter. The big 1800cc engine roared, then settled down to a contented purr as if the bike had just eaten a Suzuki Custom.

"Mount up and follow us," Kat told me.

Obediently I mounted up, and when they took off down the alley, I followed along. Considerately, they kept the speed at something my little Suzuki could handle without blowing a gasket. We kept to the alleys for a few blocks, then swung out onto a main road.

We rode for ten, maybe fifteen minutes… after the first five of which 1 was hopelessly lost. We were still in the heart of Ewa, I figured, but where precisely? Well, I suppose it didn't really matter. Eventually, Moko, who was riding directly ahead of me, flicked on his right-turn signal-the first time in the ride that he'd bothered with such niceties-and I slowed for the turn. The two lead bikes leaned way over, the Viking's pipes almost scraping the asphalt and headed directly for the closed up-and-over door of a warehouse…

Which opened just in time for them to cruise through. I'd hung back too far, and the door had already started to close again as I scooted under. The metal roof echoed back the thudding of the Viking's engine until it sounded like a.50-cal machine gun on full-auto. Slowly, the lead bikes rolled across the open warehouse floor and into what looked like a low alcove in the far wall. I followed and cut my engine as Kat gave me a slash across the throat kill signal. For a few seconds my ears still rang with the concussion of the Honda's big engine.

The floor jolted under me, and I almost lost the Suzuki, whose kick-stand wasn't down yet, as the "alcove" started to rise. A freight elevator. As the elevator continued up, the two orks dismounted, and Kat stripped off her riding gear. The floor eventually stopped moving, and the two shadowrunners-what else could they be, neh?-led me out into the low-ceilinged second floor of the warehouse.

It was set up as a large ops room, I saw at once. Over against one wall was a weapons area-a fragging arsenal with various and assorted implements of mayhem mounted on hooks. In one corner was a sophisticated-looking commo suite; in another, a collection of computers and miscellaneous other tech-toys connected by a medusa's-head of wiring harnesses. Moko led me over toward a briefing table-the high-tech kind with a complex array of flatscreen display panels built into the tabletop-and slumped down in a swivel chair.

For the first time in a long time I felt my muscles start to relax. I was among professionals. I could feel the "vibes," and I recognized them. I knew Argent, the sole surviving street op from the late, lamented Wrecking Crew, would feel very much at home here.

And as I relaxed, my brain finally acknowledged various physical signals that parts of my body had been sending for some time. I glanced over at Kat, suddenly a touch embarrassed. "Where's the… um, the…" She chuckled and pointed.

That part of the ops facility was sophisticated, too. I took care of immediate needs and did a little damage-control on my appearance before I re-emerged.

Another member of the team-so I assumed, at least- was waiting to use the facilities. Yet another ork, yet again with a Polynesian cast to his features. His large eyes narrowed when he saw me-suddenly encountering a stranger in a place like this was probably as disconcerting as catching an unidentified tourist using your drekker at home-but then I saw understanding dawn. I stepped aside to let him into the facilities…

But he didn't go, not immethately. "You were with Scott, huh?" he asked me without preamble. His voice sounded like a bunch of rocks in the hubcap of a moving car.

I hesitated, men, "Yeah," I admitted slowly.

"How'd he go out?"

I glanced over toward the briefing table, where Moko and Kat were, for guidance. But they were deep in conversation with each other. I shrugged and said, "Belly-bomb, I think."

"Yeah, but he got the oyabun first, huh?"

"He did that," I confirmed.

The ork smiled. "Good. He did it up right, then, the way he wanted to go out." And he strode past me into the drekker.

I blinked in surprise at the closed door. That certainly hadn't been the reaction I was expecting. I didn't get any time to think about it right then, though, as Kat called, "Hoi!" and beckoned me over.

A third figure had joined them at the table by the time I'd crossed the open floor. Hawai'ian or Polynesian or whatever in coloration, but this one was an elf, complete with the pointed ears and almond eyes. (For the first time, I realized just how few elves I'd seen here in Hawai'i.) Apart from the coloration, he wouldn't have looked out of place in Seattle… or in Cheyenne, for that matter. Instead of what I'd mentally labeled as "tropical adventure gear," he was wearing close-fitting black leathers bedecked with a fashionable assortment of chains, studs, and plates. His quasi-Mohawk coiffure left his forehead and temples bare, and three datajacks and a chipslot glinted in the overhead lights.

Kat indicated the elf. "Poki," she told me. I nodded a greeting. The elf just looked right through me, too chill to even acknowledge my existence. Like all too many elves, I added mentally.

"I hear from Marky you got a chip you need decrypted, huh?" Kat said.

I hesitated for a moment. Then-this was what I'd been looking for, wasn't it?-I reached into my pocket and pulled the chip carrier out. I slid it across the tabletop to Poki.

He picked it up, again not acknowledging my presence. It was Kat he asked, "What's the scan?"

"Seventy-bit public-key," I told him.

That got him to actually look at me rather than through me. "Yeah?" He grinned, a real predatory expression on his thin face. "Meat for the beast, hoa. By when?"

"Soonest." Kat and I spoke the word almost simultaneously.

The elf picked up the chip carrier. "When are you going to get me something tough!" he asked Kat with a decidedly evil chuckle. And with that he strode over toward the computer corner.