'Yes… I knew you were a traditionalist, Sato, but I never thought…'
'I would take action?'
'That you would betray the Chairman,' he corrected.
'He is the one who betrayed us,' Kanaga hissed through gritted teeth, 'betrayed our traditions!'
'Oh?' Kage observed. 'Like the tradition of using others as puppets? How did you get him to do it, Sato?'
'It wasn't hard,' the kobun replied with a slight shrug. 'You made it easy, in fact.'
'I…' Kage breathed, then sighed. 'The sims.'
Sato smiled without humor or warmth. 'Yes. A subliminal program, a viral subfeed.'
'That woman…'
'A puppet,' he replied. 'Like Tomashi… like you.'
Kage recalled the woman's intense stare, the endless depths of her dark eyes, the signs she was bunraku.
'Why didn't it affect me?'
'The program needed to be compressed into a tightly contained data pulse to be transmitted by the carrier's corneal emitters. It only extracts and runs in the simsense playback, and even then only during direct experience of the wet record. You would have had to replay the sim, which, of course, there was no reason for you to do. If you had, it would have served just as well. Its effect is quite limited, but profound. Fortunately, it didn't need to last long. Once I found out about Tomashi's new 'hobby,' it seemed like a prime opportunity.'
'You know what you have to do,' she had said, pressing the gun into his hand. She hadn't been talking to him. He thought of Tomashi, reliving that moment as the invasive program unfolded and ran through his brain.
Kage pulled the knife away from Kanaga's throat slightly. His hand was shaking and he focused to steady it, and keep it from slashing across the steady pulse of the artery there.
'So,' the kobun said with remarkable calm. 'You have your answers. What now? The man you protected is dead. The man who employed you is dead, and the rest of his men know their place and will shoot you on sight. It's only a matter of time before they realize you're here, if they haven't already. You'll never leave here alive. Do you kill me now and go out in a blaze of glory?'
He stopped when Kage drew his pistol and leveled it at him, stepping around to the side of the desk, keeping his eyes-and his gun-fixed on Kanaga.
'I should kill you,' he said. 'In fact, honor demands it, does it not? But you were right about Tomashi's habit being an opportunity. I've had some time to think things over while waiting for you. For the first time in my life, I'm free of obligations, free of debts, and tired of being used. That's why the sim of this conversation is being transmitted and stored someplace safe.' The new Chairman's eyes widened only slightly, but it was enough for a moment of understanding to pass between him and the former bodyguard. 'If anything happens to me… I won't be the only one to go out in a blaze of glory. Sometimes it's better to just fade away.'
He stepped back from the desk towards the doors of the study, and they slid open. Kage's eyes-and the unwavering gun barrel-remained locked on the man behind the desk until he was through them and they closed in front of him.
Sato immediately opened a new comm window on the desktop.
'Yojimbo has just left my… the Chairman's office,' he told the man on the line.
'What are your orders, sir?'
'Let him go. He's nothing, and no one, now.' The other man hesitated, confusion clearly written on his face, but only for a moment. He was trained to follow orders, not to question them.
'Hai!' he replied, nodding sharply. Sato closed the window and sat back in the chair, his own, rather than the one Shigeda died in. He would need to get a newer one, befitting his new station, he mused. He glanced out the darkened windows; the rain had stopped, although droplets of moisture still ran down the outside of the glass.
Fade away, then, he thought to the now nameless, masterless man headed out into that empty night. Fade away, into the shadows.
Big Jake
The Spirit drifted over to the curb and eased to a stop. Paulie was an excellent rigger and one of the few I would trust to remote me anywhere, especially after more than twenty years hiding out. You get used to not trusting anyone when you have been under the radar that long.
This was stupid, in so many ways, but when Donna-probably my daughter-got in touch and told me that my grandson-probably-had been kidnapped, what choice did I have? I might be-well, over fifty years old anyway, but I still hope to live enough years that I don't want any more regrets following me around.
And, God help me, I couldn't resist being John Wayne just once in my life.
Through the windscreen, I saw the shop at the corner ahead, the last shop open in this part of Seattle at this time of night. Some of the apartment windows above the shops were lit, but most were dark, meaning either early risers or a lot of empty apartments. The streets almost looked clean, shining with the rain that had been falling all day and had just given up, probably for a short breather before starting again.
As soon as I stepped out of the little three-wheeler, the clock would start. If the kidnappers were late or if the deal didn't go down quick enough, we would all have more problems than we were ready to deal with. 4th and Pine was not the most happening part of downtown, but all of my contacts combined still gave me no hope of being able to spoof all of the cams, sniffers, ears, and other possible stuff that could be scattered all over the place here.
My best hope was that popping up unexpected, in a city far from my normal haunts in my runner days, would give me enough time to get the swap made and get my grandson out of here, before Humanis goons overran the drop point.
Frankly, I was tempted to blow it all off when the call came from Donna, but then she knew she was taking a chance of blowing my cover by calling in the first place, and the need was desperate enough that she used the one-off code I'd given her, so it had to be serious and I knew, at least, that it was her and not anyone I really had to worry about. Made a trap at least a little less likely.
About the time I dropped off the face of the Earth, she was just starting at Ares, a development manager in some lab or another, doing something that she couldn't talk about, but she probably was my daughter, so I had to leave a contact point with someone in case some of my old friends needed me. In the bosom of Ares, she was about as safe as she could be from anyone trying to pry the contact info out of her. Besides, only my really good friends knew she was probably my daughter: my name didn't appear anywhere on any of her records, so if I hadn't told someone myself, they wouldn't know. I trusted my closest friends to keep the secret and, since I am still alive, they must have.
I took a deep breath and popped the hatch. As I stepped out, I started a clock in my head. Packets were doubtless already flying and it was only a matter of time before one of those packets hooked up with a spider out in the Matrix somewhere and a whole world of crap would descend from the sky.
OK, I chose the place. Donna gave me the contact info for the exchange. Fortunately, the people who took the kid were smart enough to realize Donna had no hope of getting around Ares security, so they were willing to allow a go-between and the fact that the go-between was an old man with the beginnings of a serious belly seemed to go well with them.
Of course, the picture I let them see wasn't really me. Facial recognition software would have tied my face to my name and that would have been the game.
I patted my jacket and tapped the various pockets in my cargo pants.
And they said cargo pants would never come back in style. OK, so they were right, but all those pockets were still useful for carrying stuff. I just hoped it was enough.
I stepped on the sidewalk as the Spirit pulled back into the street and disappeared into the night. Paulie would lose it out there somewhere for a while, long enough that I would hopefully be able to crawl back into a hole
