Bronte nodded.
“And you,” Sorensen said to Salvi, “are his wife. An interior decorator and mixed-media artist with a penchant for the exotic and the erotic. You need to get familiar with the art scene. Got it?”
Salvi nodded.
“We’ll give you some lists of places and designers to drop in conversation,” Kara said. “So you know our main target is the Floor to Ceiling nightclub, right? Well it’s owned by this man.” Kara projected an image from her iPort. The man was Caucasian, brunette, handsome, well-groomed. “This is Lance Chaney. He owns a few clubs and in the past few years has been swiftly moving up the club scene as a serious player. He’s a new threat to the old guard running the ‘Sation. He comes from money, but it seems he has a good head for business as well. So far we have not been able to tie him confidently to any known criminal figures, or any illegal activity. We’ve seen a little drug and tech dealing in his clubs, but they appear to be individual sales, not something Chaney has involvement in himself. That’s why we need to get into Ceiling and that basement to see just what’s going on in there, and if he is involved, but it’s proving hard to crack. So we’re going to have to go above and beyond to get our asses in there.”
“On one of my cases,” Salvi said, “my vic took a picture of a group of women in the Floor to Ceiling club. I think they may have actually been on the Ceiling itself. One of the women looked to be openly wearing a neural device. Whether it was connected to an implant, I’m not sure, but if that’s the case, we can assume on the Ceiling that anything goes?”
“Yeah,” Kara nodded. “Just about. Caine was told it was definitely a place where people could let their hair down and feel safe about not being reported for their pleasures. So, drugs, tech, you name it. Assume it’s all up for grabs up there.” Kara sighed, “I wish we knew what he saw there, but he moved so goddamned fast he hit both the Ceiling and the basement in one night, so we never got his report.”
Salvi nodded, recalling when she’d seen Caine turn up late in the bullpen. He’d taken something from his drawer and put it in his pocket. It looked like a business card. Had it been related to his case?
“We’ll supply you with tracking devices,” Noble said. “They’re tiny and, given what happened with Caine, we’re going to plant a second device on you both. It’s simply an emergency beacon. It stays dormant, and hence undetectable, until you activate it. We have to assume they’re scanning people for stuff like that. If they pick up and remove your active tracking device, you will hopefully still have the power to activate your dormant beacon. But you gotta pick the right time to do that. Too early, they may detect it. Too late, you’re dead.”
The silence sat heavily in the room as Caine entered their minds.
“Did Caine have one?” Bronte asked.
“An emergency beacon?” Noble said. “No. Just the tracking device. We didn’t appreciate how sophisticated these criminals were. That’s why we’re looking to use alternative means to assist us this time ‘round. We’re going to deploy surveillance equipment that locks onto heat signatures and have our AIs follow them via the drones from outside the buildings, but we won’t know whether this works until we try it. For all we know the Ceiling is designed to block everything out.”
“It has heavy security, that’s for sure,” Kara said, “and no personal comms. That’s what we learned when Caine made it through. He stepped out briefly, long enough to send us the message about heading to the basement, but that’s about all we know.”
“So we’re going to get creative with our devices,” Noble said. “Brentt, we’re going to try hiding your tracking device in a set of digital fingernails. Bronte, we’ll put a fake tooth in your wisdom cavity and hide one there. You get the picture.”
Bronte nodded and Kara exhaled heavily.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” she said. “It’s taken me weeks to get to level 3, but I’m just a small-time drug dealer. Caine going in as a pretty boy big spender seemed to work. So that’s what we’re doing with you two. You go in, flash your cash, show you’re not scared to push the limits of what you call fun. Hopefully, that’ll open some doors.”
They nodded again.
“Alright,” Sorensen said. “Pack your bags and settle into your new digs, see Kara about your wardrobe, and load up on caffeine, because we’re sending you in tonight.”
Salvi stood at the window of her temporary apartment, looking down on the street below.
“Nice neighborhood,” Bronte said, coming to stand beside her as he rubbed his jaw.
“Yeah,” Salvi nodded, her eyes drifting to her real apartment barely three blocks away. Mitch was the only one who knew she had come from money and that she had an apartment like that; purchased with an inheritance from her evangelist parents.
“One can dream about living in a place like this,” he said, rubbing his jaw again.
Salvi studied him.
“You got off lightly,” he said, motioning to her set of digital nails, glinting in the lights. They looked like someone had smashed up a mirror ball and pressed the crushed glass onto her fingernails. She had no idea where exactly the tracking device was hidden, but it was in there somewhere. “They actually attached a fake tooth to my jaw,” he said. “Like, they fucking rigged it into my actual jaw.”
“I guess it’s gotta look
