What a city. Big, bold and with a complete load of bast..errm...bar-stewards.
Dexter met us at the station. He gave Werka a card with some details on. Probably the hotel address and some other important stuff. He left in a black cab, and I went with Dexter in another cab to the hotel he'd arranged for me.
After the usual chit chat pleasantry's I just had to break the thin veil of normality:
"What the fuck is all this about an AI?"
"Oh..you and Werka spoke somewhat on the way then? Didn't really expect you two to meet up in real life so soon."
"Yeah, well we've met and had freaky convo about some mystery server in the states and a weird AI. What's up, Dex?"
"It's a strange situation, man. What we have on our hands isn't what the Kults used to. It's why I only requested a few deckers. All of use who have experience with the shadows."
The shadows. More jargon. Sounds spooky as hell, but its just lingo in the end. Means the shadow end of the governments of the world. I've had a run in. MOD in England, CIA in the states, even CSS in Canada. Like they say in those X-File type TV programs..they're everywhere, and yes, they control stuff. It's the way the world works, and to say that the majority of circumstances are controlled in the shadows is like saying the majority of people trapped in a fire get burnt. It's fact, not speculation. But it's a dangerous fact.
" So, the people who made this AI are working for a shadow?"
"Yup, but not just one. Anyway..it doesn't matter now, it'll all come out in an hour at the meeting, just put yer things away and meet me down the road at the Old Grey Hare, yeah?"
"Yeah...see you there."
Out the cab and into my 2 day accommodation. Nice hotel. Not huge, but pleasantly set out and with just the right balance of comforts.
*YAWN*
Could do with a nap. Nah, just put my laptop and clothes away and change.
Hmm...I'm here under the pretences..might as well look the part..yeah. I'll put my Frenzal Rhomb hoody on.
Now for a shave..
KNOCK KNOCK
The door.
Hmmm, who the?
"Who is it?" I belt out, from the bathroom.
"Hotel manager, sir. I would just like to have a quick chat about the bill."
Funny, should've all been sorted out.
I'm moving out of the bathroom doorway when a familiar beep emanates from my mobile, laid out on the bedside table to my left.
As it's on the way I casually scoop it up and tap "Read". A text message pops up from Dexters current anonymous mobile number.
(I know it can only be Dexter as we're using the new encrypted mobiles from Norway...especially bought for secret Kult meeting. Smart kit.)
He says: "Don't answer the door. It isn't who they say they are. It's the shadows. They know. Get out. New meeting: place #3".
Shit!
I'm still walking towards the door like nothings happened while the information processes in my head, it sinks in like a lead weight and I dive down to the floor onto one knee, role on my side and grab my shoulder bag from under the bed.
A quick unzip and I pull out my emergency backup.
(It is advised that all Kult members have two packs provisioned for different situations. One is an AWOL pack. Kit set out for situations when you need to go missing in action very quickly. The second is an emergency backup pack.)
In my right hand is a two-ground piece of kit nicknamed "X-Ray Goggles 2000i". They're really Very Near Infra-Red Goggles. They fit over the head in an instant and allow me to adjust to the appropriate range of light. Zoom out and I can see straight through the wooden door of the hotel room. A smartly dressed businessman with spectacles, room keys and one item of great note worth. Known in the security business as a taser, if my bi-monthly research on weapons matter is correct this particular item is capable of delivering enough volts to the central nervous system to leave an assailant as-good-as dead (or wishing they were).
In my left hand is a wakizashi blade. An 18" L6-Bainite steel Japanese-style sword. Normally paired with a katana blade, but in this case on its own for small individual defense. It's a deadly weapon, and made to my own standards by an American sword forging company for approximately $5,000 USD. It has amazing stopping power and is almost unbreakable. Almost. (And if you want to know how I paid for this, I'd suggest looking up the company EternalServ sometime. Trading symbol ETNSV. We have very reasonable rates.)
The advantage of this of course is that for the past three years I have been a practitioner of the art of Ken-Jutsu (as well as its hand-to-hand sister-art, Ju-Jutsu), spawned mainly from my love of Japanese Samurai movies. I suppose every hacker needs a hobby away from their computer screens. Only mine is capable of killing fully trained soliders with a few arms movements.
On the floor of the hotel, at the base of my knee, lies a backup PDA I carry with me, inserted into it is a SmartMedia disk Dexter slipped me when we arrived at the hotel. The disk contains information about this area of Manchester, and in particular this hotel. On the screen is a plan of the floor I'm staying on.
I try to use the IR goggles to scan the rest of the hallway, but the goggles struggle to display an image past the door, let alone what appears to be brick, and not plaster as I thought, walls.
It's taken me 25 seconds to carry out this array of tasks in succession.
I must be getting slow in my old (teen)age.
I roll across the floor of the room to the right of the door, and shout: "It's open, come in."
*CLICK*
*CREEEAAAK*
A foot steps through the door. 5 inches open. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. He's half way through the door as the gun comes up and his face contorts to that of a targeting predator. Never saw the damned gun. Must've been behind his back.
This is no policeman or FBI agent coming to make an arrest. This guys out for his pound of flesh.
Pay kind with kind I always say.
*FWISH* *CHUNK* *KRRRRRR* *SHHHHH* *KLACK*
I swing, the wakizashi meets flesh...bone...there's blood...never seen a blade displace so much blood. The stuff pours. It's a smooth, relatively clean cut. From upper left to lower right. I slice the back of his torso as his whole body has entered the room. He's dropped the gun before my blades even exited. The new red flowing liquid surface of the wakizashi meets the top layer of the pleasantly carpeted floor.
"Where? FUC...ungh...GARGHHH....auhglk....!"
He hits the floor like..well...to say he was akin to a sack of potatoes would be putting a rather light spin on things.
I pull the wakizashi's sheaf out of the back of my belt, run the blade over some very "chint" linen on a dresser top, to remove most of the shadow-guys blood, and then re-sheaf the blade.
It all takes another 15 seconds.
Time takes forever. I could've made a cup of tea in what it seemed. The sheafed blade is stuffed back under my belt the goggles are brought back down and I'm out the door, PDA in hand.
A short run down the hallway and an adjustment to the IR wavelength on my goggles tells me there's a fire escape on this floor. Or rather an exit to a fortunately (almost scripted) fire escape ladder. I push the goggles up, increase my rate of run towards the exit door, spin, grab my blade hilt pull up with my arm in a curved motion and as I spin round to face the door I slash into the area inches above the doors lock. The IR goggles told me there was highly absorbent material there and from the sound the L6-Bainte blade made when it entered the wood, I was right in thinking it was the lock.
Although very unbreakable and with a good memory (it would return to it's shaped after being bent), my especially purchased blade could still not make its full way through almost solid wood and steel without exiting worse for wear. But having said this, the lock was sliced, and the blade did its job to the last.
I drop the blade and sheaf and bolt through the exit door almost faster than my already exhausted legs even want to go.
I'm down in the street now.
No I'm not. I'm down the whole damned road. Out Place #3. Dex told me the meet would be at Place #3 now. Place #3 was a designated location in Manchester, out of 5 other locations, in case shit hit the fan. There no longer was a fan. Just a big pile of excreted stuff.
Place #3 is a little tea café. There aren't any other deckers inside. Just Dexter.
He sits alone at a table in the corner.
I enter and sit next to him, we both order some tea, I order some scones as well. Killing a man has given me an appetite. Just hope I can quench it with this bitter after taste still lingering.
"What the hell happened?" is all I manage to blurt out. Or at least it's all I hear myself manage to blurt out. Can't quite remember telling my lips to say the words.
"I don't know. It just all went south. It all got fucked up and I don't know why. I don't know!!"
"Okay. Calm down. I've already been through enough myself, and freaking out at this stage will just make things worse."
"Yeah..I suppose yer right. It was Werka. He told me. He phoned me after I left your hotel. He said some guy in a suit, holding a taser, stalked him and that some cops tried to pick him up as well...with guns. Don't know what he meant. But it just scared the shit outta me."
"Yeah. Same at the hotel. Guy with a taser, and a gun. Tried to take me out. Got to him first. How'd you register the hotel booking?"
"Was an alias, untraceable to me or you. Normal Kult contacts. Shouldn't have any problems. Shadows could easily trace us, but they wouldn't help the normal police or any shit like that."
"Hey..what happened to Werka?"
"He hung off...haven't heard from him since. I...I think they fuckin' got him." The look on Dex's face could've made gun-totting A. Hitler get onto his knees and beg for mercy from a jew.
"They did. And I doubt they want us now. They'll have all the info they wanted from Werka. He was the info-man. They just wanted us out of the picture while they figured out what the whole picture was."
"Yeah......this was a total fuck up. It looks like we were the only ones targeted. I've given the other deckers signal to go home. We can't do anything now. We might as well just get on with other lives for the time being."
"Dex...what was this all about?"
"I didn't tell you...erm...did I? No...I didn't...information."
"Wha?"
"It's about information. The AI. The shadows. It's all info. The big governments want info on shit. Things like the attacks on the US. Drugs, hacking, pirating, wars. The fucking lot. The AI was a ghost. A way into systems. A backdoor into encryption. A backdoor into government or nearly all kinds.
You name it, the AI was an info-leak of the biggest kind.
No. Still is.
It exists and we can't do jackshit about it."
"No. We can. We can leak info ourselves. To everyone else. They can have their info, as long as the rest of us have ours.
"Yeah maybe." Dexter says as he raises himself off his chair.
"I'll see you around, Vampyre. Watch what you hack."
"Later."
We both leave.
Previous - Next
