Delgado sipped wearily at a beer that tasted of sharp citrus and almost real hops. She allowed herself the small luxury. She figured she owed herself that. The corps hadn't locked her accounts – at least not yet – so she had a small window of opportunity to shovel what funds she had away from their grabbing fingers.
Maybe, they were still trying to keep some of this craziness under wraps. Maybe someone somewhere didn't think she was worth any further attention. Hell, maybe they thought she'd crawled away and died of her wounds.
Given the thoroughness of surveillance in Hadrian, she doubted that somehow, but no point looking a gift horse in the mouth.
So she drank, and she waited. The bar was about half full, a place high enough up and back from the Hadrian River to avoid the chemical backwash of the polluted waterway. Old bluesy guitar music rumbled from a jukebox and a stream of adverts for new beers, spirits and heavily processed foods rolled around the data stream in the walls.
Rain arrived a few minutes later.
The woman walked through the bar with the breezy stride of someone who didn't have to be afraid of anything – not anymore. A green Kaysar jacket hung open, revealing a form-fit sheathe of body-armour that covered her from throat to waist, disappearing beneath her baggy trousers.
Corporate luxury – comfort combined with a protective mesh that could stop a bullet from even point blank range. The bulk of a matte-black firearm jutted from her right hip and people edged out of her way as she strode towards Delgado's table. A wry smile filled Rain's mouth as she stopped, leaning forward to place her elbows on the chair back opposite.
"Well, well," she said. "This place takes me back."
Delgado raised her beer and winked. "All good memories I hope."
"Some."
"You look good."
"Thanks." Rain's smile faded slightly as she examined Delgado's battered, bandaged frame. "You look like you've been through a warzone. Are you alright?"
"Oh, you know, just surviving." She indicated the chair with a nod. "You going to sit down?"
Rain frowned, but slid the chair out and sat. Her visor sprang into life for a couple of seconds with a golden band across her eyes, then disappeared. A moment later a waiter appeared and set a metal tankard of beer down beside her. She didn't say anything, instead taking a gulp and breathing deep, smacking her lips with satisfaction.
"Alright," Rain said eventually. "You've got about as long as it takes me to finish this drink. If Kaysar realise I've been gone too long I'll have to start answering questions."
"Good to know I'm a cheap date."
"Chloe, I'm serious. Talk fast."
"Alright, alright, alright." Delgado took another sip of her own beer and leaned forward, keeping her voice low. "You said the situation with the wraiths – it was worse than I knew?"
Rain gave her a grim look. "Yeah. You didn't hear this from me, but the incidents out at the docks are not the real problem. There have been incidents in the heart. They've tried to keep it quiet but, well, Kaysar run half the security contracts out there. I hear things."
"What kind of things?"
"That AmpCore and about a dozen of those wraiths blasted up a whole intersection. Somebody put a lid on it before we could investigate anything." Rain leaned closer too, sliding the beer tankard around in front of her and gripping it with both hands. "I tried doing some digging but I got stonewalled. Whatever's going on is well above my pay grade."
Delgado couldn't suppress a smile. "Some things never change, eh? Did you really think it was going to be that different working on the inside?"
"Don't start, Chloe."
"I'm just saying. We had a good thing going-,"
"Did we?" Rain's eyes flared with anger. "Look where it got you, Chloe. You're a damned fugitive now, all because you tried to go against the corporations by yourself. You should have come with me!"
"I'd take a dozen more bullets before I'd let Kaysar – or anyone – else stick a fucking leash on me, Rain. You know that."
"Yeah, I suppose I do." She swigged her drink and sighed. "Do you want to hear what I have to say or not?"
Delgado felt a twinge of remorse. Whatever had happened between them in the past, Rain was throwing her a lifeline now, and that would never come without a risk, not with the corps.
No need to be a bitch about it.
"Sorry, you're right." She nodded apologetically. "So who's stonewalling you?"
"Internally, my own bloody captain. Beyond that, every enquiry I make dumps me from one private security firm after another. Contractors from Skiltron, Code Vector, Ardenne, Gammaton, Prometheus – you name it." She shook her head in frustration. "I knew what I was getting into when I joined Kaysar. I know how the corps work and I know how to play the game, but this is different. It's like everyone in the damned city wants to keep this from me."
"Ah." Delgado smiled thinly. "I might be able to help explain that."
Rain gave her a scathingly sceptical look. "Do tell?"
"I told you they were building codewraiths."
"Yeah. It doesn't sound any less crazy hearing it in person."
"Humour me."
Her companion gestured for her to continue, settling back into her seat with her drink. And so Delgado started talking. She told her about Piper Russell; about the wraith attacks. She recounted everything she and Kirk and Arden had dug up, the theories of the dock tech, Selbray, the compartmentalised contracts, factory blueprints, links to the Schism, all the way through to her shoot out with the corporate security squad just a couple of nights ago.
To her credit, Rain just listened. Her expression slowly morphed from one of incredulity, into concern, into disbelief. She periodically glanced around, as though afraid that any second more jackbooted thugs might come crashing through the bar to carry Delgado off.
When the tale was finished, Delgado sagged back into her chair, trying to ignore the pain that throbbed through her wounds and taking a steadying glug of beer. Then she waited.
"Shit," Rain said eventually. "That's a hell of a story."
"Believe me, I know."
"So this girl – Piper – she's connected to the wraith attacks somehow?"
"Seems like it. The way they told me, the first night those things were after her specifically. Then she disappeared. Word that we have is that she's locked up with AmpCore." She shrugged. "Until we find her, that's all I know. But the wraiths seemed to be hunting her. That's why they ended up in the heart scaring the shit out of the corporations."
Rain nodded. "Let's say I buy all of this. What exactly is it you need from me?"
"This whole contract thing," Delgado explained. "They'd need security from somebody, to keep people away from the factory site. There must be a paper trail somewhere. You get bet your ass that somebody from Kaysar's covering for this."
"And you want me to find out who?"
"Just find the contracts. Find the where." Delgado shook her head. "I'm not asking you to interrogate anybody."
"So just a bit of corporate espionage on my own people, eh?"
"Like you've never done it before."
"I need to think about this." Rain rubbed her eyes with one hand. "You need to understand, if someone caught me digging into this it could end my career."
Delgado kicked the table with her good leg in frustration. "This isn't about your fucking career, Rain. People are getting killed out there, and the corps are covering it up!"
"Yeah, and I'd rather not become part of the body count," Rain shot back. "Look at what happened to you!"
It was all she could do not to fling the contents of her beer straight into the woman's face. It was almost impossible to believe that this was someone she's been so close to once upon a time. Delgado took a deep breath; counted to ten and tried to remember the old Rain, the one she hoped was still hiding under that Kaysar uniform.
"Please, Rain," she said at last. "I don't have anywhere else to turn to. This is bigger than you and me."
The tankard slid back and forth between Rain's strong fingers, her brow furrowed with discomfort. Her eyes rose eventually to meet Delgado's gaze.
"I can't promise anything," she said carefully. "But I will look around. Discreetly. If somebody has been stupid enough to start building more codewraiths I'd like to know about it."
"That's all I'm asking for," Delgado replied, feeling like a mountain had been lifted off of her shoulders.
They sat in silence for a long moment, the bustle of the bar flowing around them, unheeding of the storm brewing in Hadrian's heart. Then Rain reached into the pocked of her jacket and pulled out a dark black case, six inches long and etched with a silver bear's head logo. Without a word she placed it on the table and slid it across.
Delgado picked it up, hesitated for an instant, then opened it.
Inside the case were six large, darkleaf cigars.
"Holy shit," she breathed. "Where did you get these?"
"Working for Kaysar isn't all bad, Chloe." Rain smiled. "And you seem like you could use them more than me-,"
Suddenly she stopped talking. In a sharp motion she sat up, ramrod stiff as her visor flared into life over her eyes. Delgado opened her mouth to ask what was going on, but the other woman raised a hand, silencing her. Frowning, she receded back into her chair and waited.
She didn't think it would be possible for the companion's posture to get any stiffer, as though being winched by a crank, Rain straightened a few extra millimetres, her mouth parting as something played across the golden band over her eyes. Whatever audio there might have been was getting piped right into Rain's private feed, so Delgado could only sit and grow slowly more and more concerned.
"Son of a bitch," Rain murmured after a moment.
"What's going on?"
"Looks like we're not the only ones looking for Piper Russell." Her hands clenched into tight fists on the table. "I think you'd better see this."
Delgado straightened up, a tremor of worry shooting up her spine at seeing her old flame so rattled. Taking a breath, she tapped the implant in her temple and brought her own visor glittering into life. The overlay across her vision showed a blizzard of possible connections in the bar, private links blocked out in angry red, with public ports shining invitingly blue.
Then Rain twitched her head to the right and the file she'd been playing zipped across the empty space between them, smacking into Delgado's visor like a baseball into a catcher's mitt. She flinched as the thing burst into prominence and it took a moment for her to realise it was a video file. Winking, she activated it.
At first all she saw was a dark room. Some kind of industrial complex – could have been in a thousand places in Hadrian at first glance. She could hear the dull clatter of machinery and a low hum of voices; something drip-dripping closer to the camera.
Then the image panned and Delgado's eyes went wide behind the visor when she found herself looking into the pitiless features of none other than Cutter Jennings. A dead smile hung on his face and he folded his arms across his massive chest, staring down the camera like a ghoul from a forgotten land.
She knew him by his file. She'd never had the misfortune of meeting him in person. Delgado didn't think herself easily scared, but Cutter had a mystique about him that put even the most seasoned cops on edge. There were plenty of dead idealists who'd thought they could treat him differently. If you didn't rock the boat, Cutter and his thugs kept their business to themselves – kept a bloody balance in Hadrian's dark places.
But now he wanted the recipients to know exactly who they were dealing with. The broadcast was a narrowband, kept off of the public data streams but stabbing every corporate network like a stiletto.
"This is a message for Hadrian's corporations," Cutter said, his voice level, almost as though he was speaking to an old friend. His smile never wavered. "And it's simple. Your machines killed my son. You took his body from me and have tried to pretend to the whole world that nothing happened. But some of us know better. The things that killed my son were after a girl – Piper Russell. I know you are keeping her hidden, and that those machines are still out there killing people. I believe they will continue to kill people until they get what they want."
"Son of a bitch," Delgado breathed, stunned by the audacity. Jennings had a lot of clout in the slums and docks, but picking a fight with the corporations was a different level of gameplay. Beyond the visor she could see Rain tapping something frantically into her datapad, but Cutter's message carried on.
"What they want, is Piper Russell, the girl you are harbouring," he continued. "And since you won't give her up, I thought I would apply some leverage." The camera shifted, zooming out to show all of Cutter's towering frame, and panning slightly to his left.
Two young figures were shoved into view, with a lot of guns pointed at them. A woman prowled around in front, briefly obscuring them, and letting a nasty-looking knife shine into shot for a couple of seconds before she drifted out of frame.
Delgado's heart thudded down into her stomach when the two figures were shunted into the light.
Kirk and Arden.
How the fuck had Cutter Jennings gotten his claws on them? Her whole body tensed up involuntarily, the pain of her wounds flaring up as she clamped her teeth together in frustration. Already her detective's mind was trying to pick up some sort of detail from the background, anything that might give away the location of the group, but she could see nothing distinctive amongst the tangle of pipes and vents.
"This message is directly for Piper Russell. I would suggest you allow her to see it." Cutter cast a brutal glance at the pair, moving to place his hands on his hips and in the same motion sweeping back his long coat to reveal the huge, gleaming handgun shoved through his belt-holster. "Piper, you don't know me personally, but you've caused me a lot of trouble over the past few weeks, whether you meant to or not. I think it's time we put an end to it."
He gestured to his captives. "Your sister, Arden, and your musician, Kirk. I am not going to bore you with the hows and the whys of what brought them to me, but they are here." Cutter looked at them. "Say hello."
To Delgado's surprise, both of them remained sullenly silent. Only when one of the hulking thugs standing beside them smashed the butt of his rifle into the small of Kirk's back did they respond.
"Piper!" Arden shouted, straining in the grip of a second thug. "Fuck this guy. Whatever happens, don't let this piece of dock scum-" A punch to her stomach silenced her and she went down coughing alongside Kirk.
Cutter Jennings tutted, then turned back to the camera. "They've still got their spirit. Quite commendable. But let me make this simple, Piper. You will meet me at the coordinates embedded in this message – I'm sure your AmpCore friends can decipher the encryption. You will bring my son's body, you will come alone, you will come unarmed, and you will come in twenty four hours.
"My people will be watching. If you are not here in twenty-four hours, Kirk dies. That will buy you another twenty-four hours. If you still are not here, I will have to assume the corporations have kept this message from you and have no interest in putting an end to the wraith attacks. At that point, I will kill your sister, and you will never see me again." The camera shifted again, bringing Cutter into full focus as his two young prisoners were dragged away, their protests fading into the white noise.
A knowing smirk crawled back across his face as he continued. "And for the corporate rats listening to this message, if you don't deliver Piper and my son's body in forty-eight hours, once they are dead, I will show the whole city what you've been doing. I will show them what killed my boy." He glanced over his shoulder and nodded. The camera shifted again, swinging to the left to focus on the woman with the knife, standing next to a tarpaulin. Something underneath it bulged ominously.
The ganger gave one sharp tug and the sheet rasped away to fall to the floor, revealing the mangled body of a codewraith.
The same codewraith Delgado had killed.
"Fuck..." she breathed as Cutter spoke again.
"The image of this codewraith will hit every public network, every dockside screen, every shitty slate and broadcast in this city. Then we'll see what happens when Hadrian realises just what their sainted corporations are are really doing."
She couldn't quite believe it. Her mind twisted as she tried to decide how realistic a threat this was. If it came to a stand up fight, she knew the corporations could flatten Cutter's organisation and any ill-conceived rebellion, but she honestly didn't know how the citizens of Hadrian would react to knowing the corps were building these things again.
Fear might keep them in line.
Fear of the past might push them over the edge.
"Piper," Jennings continued. "If you do come, but you bring the corporations with you, I will kill both of them on the spot. There will be no second chances. Come alone and bring me Barson, and I will release them unharmed." He paused, staring down the camera, like he was searching for Piper's face in the screen. "I've heard you're smart, Piper. Smart enough to understand a good deal. Meet me on my terms, and no-one else has to die."
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