Streets of blood

29

Wednesday afternoon was crisp and clear, the watery winter sunshine showing the M4 motorway in all its tawdry gray glory, a succession of roadworks, graffiti-covered overpasses, and potholes. Driving through the latest in a succession of ugly outlying suburban sprawlzones, Geraint cursed imaginatively but anatomically impossibly. What set him off was another snarl of traffic fifteen miles beyond the outer orbital, a tailback from one of the ubiquitous road repairs that had the highway down to one lane of traffic in either direction. Francesca sat beside him with fingers flying, dumping notes into her laptop.

“An interesting yield, Geraint,” she said without looking up. She had not heard his curse. “Serrin’s going to positively adore what we got on Kuranita.”

Geraint was in a foul mood, hands gripping the steering wheel tightly, staring grimly along the column of slow-moving traffic before him.

“That was the cleanest download,” Francesca was saying. “We could have done with more on Smith and Jones, but at least now we know who’s employing them. Finally.”

“But that degrading IC,” he said. “Sneaky bastards. I wasn’t expecting anything like that. The file we got was only a fragment, but I’m confident the probability program can reconstruct it. We won’t be too far off. And as you say, now we know who Smith and Jones are working for.”

Geraint craned his head and sighed as the column of vehicles ahead of them stopped again. “No way of getting at them, though. Nothing to tell us where they are or what they might do next. Nothing on the Ripper, either.” Geraint turned to read the expression on Francesca’s face, but she seemed to be recovering well from her ordeal.

“They may have been too fast for that. That inforination might very well have been scrambled. Hey, we’re moving again…” Francesca broke off speaking as Geraint accelerated to more normal speed. The traffic had begun to flow normally, at last. Beyond the bottleneck, however, they hit another line of indicator cones fencing off another deep hole in the plascrete. Geraint wanted to pass up some of the other traffic, but was stymied by a series of cars in the fast lane. He vented his impatience in an uncharacteristic expression of anger.

“Move over, you tosser!” he exploded, then turned sheepishly to his companion. “Sorry. Fran. I'm just eager to get home again, and this traffic is really beginning to get to me. Wonder what Serrin and Rani have been up to.”

“If they did as well as we did, they’ll be… Geraint, what’s wrong?”

It was a single shot, probably armor-piercing. The sound of the hit should have been lost among the honking horns of the snarled traffic, but the Saab’s internal security systems went active, alerting Geraint. From the flashing alert panels he saw that the bullet had only passed through the main chassis, hitting nothing important.

“Clazz, Fran. someone’s just taken a shot at us!” They were passing under an expressway overpass when the car behind them veered crazily and swung into the next lane. Glancing into the rearview mirror, Geraint saw a shattered windscreen and a splash of red blur across the fragmented plasglass before the other car veered off and plunged into the embankment. He floored the gas pedal, sending the Saab screaming out from the other side of the bridge, lane-dodging to the sound of other drivers angrily sounding their horns in protest.

The grenade burst hit just to their rear, a spray of tarmac and stone splashing up over the hood of the Rolls traveling behind them. The windshield didn’t break, but suddenly the driver could see nothing.

As the Saab raced away. Geraint saw the Rolls screech to a stop, creating a very messy pile-up among the cars trailing behind it. The Saab’s systems had already alerted him to the second bullet hit. He kept his head down and his pedal to the metal. Taking the next exit he put some distance between them and the expressway.

Deciding to lie low, they took a room in a cheap motel, where Geraint accessed his telecom’s answer message and reprogrammed it. No way was he going to risk returning to London tonight. Francesca was more philosophical; snipers on the freeway were almost an old California tradition. Geraint was definitely the more shaken up of the pair. In Britain such things didn’t happen.

“I think we should try to meet Serrin at the airport when he arrives” he said.

Francesca looked at him sharply. “But we don’t know when his plane gets in.”

“It doesn’t matter. Well just be there to collect him when it does. He may be a target, too. Rani should be all right where she is.”

Even so, Geraint called the code she’d given him. He got an angry-looking male Indian ork who refused to answer his urgent questions and then abruptly cut off the connection.

“Oh great. Can’t locate her. Let’s hope she calls me as planned. She’ll get the new message. Now for Serrin. Let's cover the angles.” He began phoning again furiously.

By the time they got to Heathrow, Geraint had guards from Risk Minimizers PLC crawling all over his flat. He also had more private security waiting for them and Serrin at the airport, but he was still uncomfortable.

They didn’t even get out of the car, but just sat and watched as a phalanx of bodyguards hustled the bewildered elf mage carefully and securely toward a waiting limo. When Geraint and Francesca emerged from the Saab, another crew of secguards ferried them with the same finesse over to the same limo. As the Saab was whisked away by the security team, the limo glided off into the late evening. Serrin turned to them, pure astonishment on his face.

“Don’t worry,” Geraint said smoothly. “It’s just that somebody decided to make our car ride home a little more interesting by setting a sniper and a grenade launcher on us. We thought they might come after you too. Tried to get Rani earlier but no luck. She’s supposed to be calling me at home, though. and I left her a warning. Security is scouring my flat right now, and we’re not going back there until they’ve worked it over from top to bottom.”

The nobleman was terse, edgy. His lifestyle didn’t normally include being shot at while behind the wheel of his car. He used the portacom to access the telecom in his flat, and was relieved to pick up a message from Rani. She mumbled rather incoherently that she was on the run, but that they shouldn’t worry, she’d get to them soon.

“Spirits, what have you two been stirring up?” Serrin was alarmed, his head full of fantasies about their decking exploits.

“Nothing really staggering. but it’s beginning to fall into place. We got something on you and certain employees of the company. I think you’ll like it.” Francesca told him.

“The Savoy.” Geraints voice was authoritative as he triggered the intercom to the driver. Flicking it off again, he said simply. “The best place is somewhere very public, I think. And the Savoy has a fine security system indeed.” He was already calling to register, listing the security services he required. They were confirmed within two minutes.

“That’s better,” he said to no one in particular, and relaxed very slightly. “We’ll get better protection than the French president on his last visit. Let’s hope we don’t need it as much as he did.”

He took the call at eight the following morning, exactly as arranged. Posted at his flat were ten security samurai and two combat mages. The electronics had also been reconfigured and the street was crawling with security. The residents of Cheyne Walk would wonder what on earth was going on in their peaceful oasis but, being Brits, they wouldn’t pluck up the courage to complain to anyone. Geraint wanted to get to the flat to retrieve money, cards, equipment, clothing, hut he wasn’t planning to stay long.

“We need somewhere safe, If they’re on to us we’ve got to go somewhere they wouldn’t expect us to go.” His Voice was brittle.

“Geraint, look, it could just have been some crazies. We don’t even know they were specifically alter us.” Francesca tried to calm him.

“Two shots. both into the chassis. They only just missed us. And a grenade? Come on. Francesca, grenades just don’t fall into the hands of crazies. Only a handful ever leak away from the corporate security goons. It had to he a corp that came after us. It must have been that bloody succubus that let them trace us. I’m sorry, my friends.” He wrung his hands in anger. “Look, it only needs one of us to get over to my place. I’ll go in the limo. It won’t take more than an hour to pick up what I need. Then we can figure out what to do next.”

When the hotel desk notified Geraint that the limo had arrived, he left with the bodyguards. Serrin turned to Francesca, eager to hear more of what had been happening.

She was glad to oblige. “After the run we analyzed what I’d downloaded. We didn’t get everything we wanted, and some of the data in the files was degraded. I had to run a program to fill in the gaps, but it wasn’t too bad. For starters, they’ve got a file on you, Serrin. It records your being employed by unspecified intermediaries to investigate security arrangements of various corporations in Cambridge. It’s got some personal stuff about you, too, but nothing especially juicy.” She looked mischievously at him and handed over the printout.

The elf scanned the pages. There wasn’t much, but he was surprised to discover that Transys had been behind the Portland runs he’d done in '43, not long after he’d left Renraku. Interesting. The target was specified as a tiny subsidiary of Global Thcbnologies.

“Oh, by the way,” Franeesea went on. “they did hire me for the Fuchi run. The file I got had nothing about them setting a spy on me-that thing that nearly killed me-but there’s a strange, scrambled line of garbage I haven’t been able to decrypt. So who knows?”

They had a file on Geraint, too, he read it, told me it contained nothing relevant, and kept it to himself, I guess he doesn’t want me to know what they’ve got on his financial and political dealings.” She smiled knowingly. “By the size of the datafile I think they’ve got quite a lot. Makes you wonder what he’s been up to, the devil.”

“As for Melvin Aloysius Smith, he’s a corporate fixer, The data on him was seriously degraded, but it’s clear that he and Peter Karl Jones have arranged at least a dozen missions together. They’re tagged as having hired you, and also as commissioning the Fuchi raid in which Rani and her people took part. No apparent connection. Actually, I can’t be absolutely certain about that. The target wasn’t specified in the subfile entry, and, again, the data was very degraded. Let’s just say that what I got is easily compatible with that supposition. They’ve hired some people for other runs, too, but nothing that seems to connect with anything we’ve got.”

Serrin nodded as he scanned the hard copy. Based on this evidence, Smith and Jones looked like very ordinary corporate fixers.

“No way of tracing them, though. There’s a Brazilian address we can crosscheck against the address from that Registration Services agency, but it’ll mean nothing. There’s some coded garbage after that, which we still haven’t been able to decrypt. If it’s significantly degraded, we won’t be able to decipher it at all.”

She continued with her summary. “As for any entries on Jack the Ripper, well, nothing. Nothing except an obviously crashed, scrambled, empty file. Whatever was there was gone by the time we got to download. Still, that tells us they used to have a file on him.”

“Oh, indeed, Francesca. I’m sure they did,” Serrin nodded grimly. “Sorry, tell you later. You finish your part first.”

“Okay.” She drew in a deep breath. This was the big one. “They had a file as fat as a walrus on Kuranita. Hey, he was a heavy samurai in his day. Before his little accident in Jo’burg he worked for quite a few corps, according to the info we got. Transys, oh so helpfully, attached probabilities for active employers to the list. In some cases, they knew for sure. That's when they hired him themselves. There’s a certain episode from about twenty years ago I think you should see.”

She had highlighted the hard copy. His hands shook as he read the matter-of-fact text. It gave the date, time, place, the fee paid, everything that was simple fact. There were no reasons given. Just a scattering of phrases such as “eliminating counter-research personnel,” the dehumanized language of executives who assassinate by memorandum.

“My parents.” His face was pale. “They hired the fragging bastard to kill my parents.” There wasn’t anything else to say. If that one crucial entry was accurate, it gave him one damned good reason for wanting to hit Transys Neuronet with everything he could muster.

Serrin took a few minutes to compose himself before telling Francesca what he’d learned during his jaunt across the Atlantic. He didn’t bother with the details of Her Ladyship, just dismissed her as weird but reliable.

“I got the names: Global Technologies and Hollywood Simsense. Then I got really lucky. I’ve got a Johnson in New York, a man I stashed one big favor with some years back. He owes me big-time, so I cashed in. He sweated when I asked him, which meant he already knew about it. Took him close to all day to get back to me, but he came through and now we’re quits.

“Global developed a combination of skillsoft and BTL technologies, apparently planning to sell them to the military. Story is that their researchers cooked up a bunch of really sick personalities, complete with their skills and memories, and the Ripper was one of them. He got out onto the streets when the goon implanted with the personality chip was unleashed after some corporate infighting between Global and Hollywood. Anyway, the two companies virtually brought each other down and the Ripper disappeared. Nobody’s quite sure what happened in the end. Odds are the military, somewhere or other, has the technology now. Nice thought, huh?”

Francesca shuddered involuntarily, all of a sudden feeling very cold.

“Just one extra flourish,” Serrin concluded. “When Hollywood Simsense stole the chips, they had a sleeping financial partner. The partner might have woken up and gobbled them alive, according to my source. You’ll never guess who the partner was.”

“Transys Neuronet, perchance?”

“Give the lady a radioactive coconut! They could have had access to those chips for long enough to know all there is to know about them. Transys could have taken the design and been testing it all this time. They’ve had more than two years to do it. This time, they could be making sure they get it right.”

The telecom on the bedside table beeped. They were almost afraid to answer it. and Francesca used the descrambler Geraint had given her from the security firm. The screen showed Geraint in his flat, smiling on the other end of the line. They could also see a very scared-looking Rani almost pinioned between a burly pair of security guards.

“Got here to find our young friend having her collar squeezed by my highly efficient security people. Fortunately, their guns were mostly set with tranq shots. Well, mostly. Anyway, we’re both safe and we’ll be back before lunch.”

“Where are we going to stay?” Francesca was beginning to run out of clean, smart clothes, and it mattered.

“Talk to you about that when we return. Not over the phone,” he said in mildly reproachful tones before disappearing with a smile as wide as the Cheshire cat’s.

It was nearly an hour before Geraint and Rani traipsed into the hotel suite escorted by a pair of hulking security men, They had only one bag apiece, certainly less than Francesca had expected. She had imagined the nobleman would turn up with whole valises stuffed full of the contents of his wall safe, When the security guards retired to a discreet distance, Geraint explained.

“The Savoy wouldn’t like me arriving with certain items, even if they were officially licensed. Think about it; would you allow people to bring serious weapons into a top-class, heavy-security hotel if you were running it?”

She could see the sense in that. “So what’s the plan?”

“Well, Rani needs to be in the Smoke tomorrow night. She’s got contacts to firm up and some advances to dispense. She’s also got a little family trouble. So, we’ll take the limo, pick up the bags I left at my flat, collect whatever you need, and then we take a plane westward.” Serrin and Francesca looked at each other, surprised.

“Time to visit the old ancestral home. I think. As it happens. Transys Neuronet has a facility of sorts just down the road, but if we head for my northern keep we should be as safe as anywhere else in the country. Besides, ever since I told young Rani about it, she’s been really eager to go. You see, she’s never actually seen a field with a cow in it. Can you believe that?”