Part 12 (2/2)
The kid still hadn't finished. ”The meet was an ambush from the start,” he repeated. ”Then the drek hit the fan, and the runner 'bodyguarding' me thought I'd sold them out. He was going to geek me. So I shot him and took his AK. Then I just wanted to bug out. I was heading for the fence when I met you.”
That hung together too, Sly thought. When she'd first seen the kid, he didn't seem comfortable or familiar with the a.s.sault rifle, as though he'd just picked it up a few seconds before.
”So just what happened when the meet crashed?” she asked.
Falcon shrugged.”First thing I knew, something blew the drek out of Benbo.” (That had to be the heavily armored samurai guarding the leader.) ”Slick thought it was something you'd set up, but I saw your face when Benbo keeled. You were as surprised as anyone.” He hesitated, then asked,”What the frag was that? Magic?”
”I think I got it figured,” Modal answered.”It took me a while. Sly, you ever hear of a Barret?”
She thought for a moment, shook her head.
”It's old,” the elf continued,”maybe nineteen-eighties or nineties. But it's the ultimate sniper rifle.
”It's a big thing. Bolt action, single-shot. But it's chambered for fifty-caliber rounds. b.l.o.o.d.y fifty-cal machine gun rounds, mate. It'll take any standard MG ammunition-military ball, tracer, explosive, SLAP, APDS, white phosphorous-and it's accurate at a klick and a half. A good sniper can squeeze off three shots before the first hits.”
She remembered seeing the gaping hole blasted right through the Amerindian samurai. She shuddered.”Fifty-cal explosive rounds ...”
”I don't think those were explosives,” Modal corrected.”More like APDS tipped with depleted uranium. The ultimate anti-armor round. The slug hits anything solid-like armor-and the kinetic energy pushes the uranium over the activation threshold. It catches fire, and it burns at more than two thousand degrees Celsius.” He grinned nastily.”Enough to b.l.o.o.d.y well ruin the day of any street sammy, if you ask me.”
In her imagination, Sly could still see the fireball burning in the Amerindian's chest before it burst out of his back. ”That's serious drek,” she murmured. With an effort she turned her attention back to Falcon. ”So who was it took out your chummers?”
”They're not my chummers,” he corrected her quietly. Then he shook his head. ”I don't know.”
”Corp teams,” Modal put in. ”Like I said.”
”Let's get back to the Amerindians,” Sly suggested. ”I don't suppose they told you why they were after me.”
”Sure,” Falcon said, nodding his head vigorously. ”Nightwalker told me. Lost tech, from the crash.”
Sly and Modal exchanged glances. She hesitated, afraid to ask the next question-the key question. ”Did he say what lost tech?” she inquired slowly.
”Sure,” the kid repeated. ”Fiber optics.”
The kid continued to explain for several minutes. When he was finished. Sly found herself just staring at him. Shocked. Tox, she thought. No wonder the corps are going to war. The ability to tap into a compet.i.tor's supposedly secure communications. More than that, to change the flow of data. She knew how prevalent was fiber-optic communication. Everything used it. The LTG system, the Matrix. Dedicated corporate and government datalines, too, because light lines were supposed to be immune to tapping. Even military channels, for frag's sake, because fiber optics would be unaffected by the electromagnetic pulse if anyone set off a nuke in the upper atmosphere.
How many trillions of nuyen had been invested in this ”ultra-secure” technology? There was no way that the megacorps, the governments, could switch everything to another medium of communication, not immediately. And during the transition phase, whoever had the technology Falcon described could quite literally control every facet of a compet.i.tor's communications. To gain that kind of advantage-or to avoid that kind of disadvantage-the corps would do anything. Even go to war.
She looked over at Modal. He understood the enormity of it, too. She could see it in his eyes. ”Jesus,” he breathed. ”Sharon Louise ...”
”I know.” She stared at Falcon for a few more moments. The kid met her gaze steadily.
”I want to work with you,” he said at last. He was obviously trying to keep the fear and tension out of his voice, but wasn't doing a very good job.
Modal snorted. Sly ignored the elf. ”Why?” she asked.
”Nightwalker wanted to do the right thing with the information when he got it,” the kid explained. ”He wanted to destroy it so n.o.body could use it. He wanted to rat the corp that was doing it to the Corporate Court in Zurich-Orbital.
”I think Knife-Edge had other ideas,” Falcon went on. ”I think he wanted to keep it for himself. Use it himself, maybe, or sell it to the highest bidder.” He shook his head. ”Nightwalker didn't want that.
”You've got the information,” he said quietly. ”What are you planning to do with it?”
And that was the big question, wasn't it? Sly thought. Destroying the encrypted file and all the information it contained-that was obviously the best choice on the global scale. But on the personal level it was no answer at all. She'd know she'd destroyed the file, but how would the corps know? I could tell them, and of course they'd believe me, yeah, right. No, with a prize this important, even the slightest chance-no matter how remote-that she hadn't destroyed the file, that she'd kept a copy, and the corps would stay on her trail. Eventually they'd grab her and torture her to death to confirm to their own satisfaction she was telling the truth. And even if they did believe she'd destroyed it, they'd still keep after her for much the same reason. When suitably ”motivated,” maybe she could remember some details from the file that might let them steal a march on their compet.i.tors.
No, destroying the file wasn't the obvious solution it seemed.
”What are you going to do?” Falcon asked again.
”I don't know,” she admitted. ”I haven't found the answer yet.”
”I want to help you find it.”
Modal snorted again. Again Sly ignored him. ”Why? It's not your fight.”
Watching the kid's face, she could see the real answer that was ringing in his head. Because his friend Nightwalker would have wanted it this way. Fuzzy-headed, sentimental, over-emotional drek!
At least the kid didn't say it out loud. He shrugged. ”Because it's important,” he said slowly. ”And because you'll need all the help you can get.”
A laser painted the side of Falcon's face. Modal had the Fichetti raised, ready to blow the kid's head off.
”No, Modal,” she snapped, forcing the whip-crack of command into her voice.
He didn't lower the gun, but neither did he pull the trigger. ”He's a liability, Sly,” the elf said emotionlessly.
”No. I'm an a.s.set.” The kid jumped on the last word like it had some real significance to him.
And Sly had to agree with him. ”Leave him,” she said quietly to Modal. ”Until I say otherwise, he's with us.”
”You're making a mistake.”
”It's mine to make.”
”Not if it gets me scragged, too,” Modal said. But he lowered the pistol, slipped it into his pocket.
That was one advantage of the pills, Sly had to admit. No bulldrek male ego, no worry about saving face. ”I want to get out of here,” she said.”We need wheels. Modal, can you boost us a car?”
Driving the stolen Westwind back to the Sheraton, Modal groused about leaving his bike behind, but Sly knew he was just blowing off steam. He understood as well as she did that going back to pick up the bikes would be too much of a risk. She'd wondered idly whether Mongoose had ever made it out of the killing zone. She'd have to call Argent when she got a chance to update him on what went down. And to tell him that at least one of his boys wasn't coming home.
The kid who called himself Falcon had ridden in the back with her. Grudgingly, Modal had followed Sly's instructions and cut off the restraints, but only after subjecting the Amerindian to something only one step away from a strip search.
Now the car was abandoned in the underground parkade of the Was.h.i.+ngton Athletic Club, across the street from the Sheraton, with the AK-97 in the trunk. Modal had b.i.t.c.hed about that, too, but hadn't had an answer when Sly asked him how he expected to smuggle the a.s.sault rifle into the hotel. He knew as well as she did that the Sheraton's weapons detectors would pick up their handguns, Modal's Ingram. As in most better-cla.s.s hotels, the security personnel would simply have recorded that the guests in rooms 1203 and 1205 were carrying ”personal defense devices.” But the matter wouldn't be so routine if the electronics suite were to pick up the AK concealed under somebody's coat.
The clock on the bedside table of room 1205 read oh-four-fifty-one. Only two hours since they'd left the hotel for the meet. It felt more like days.
The kid, Falcon, flopped down in an armchair. In the brighter light, he looked younger than she'd originally thought, no older than fifteen. And he looked tired, like he hadn't slept in days. His face was pinched, his olive complexion pale.
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