White Wolf Publishing owns the "World of Darkness." My use is in no way meant to challenge their copyrights. This piece is not intended for any profit on the part of the writer, nor is it meant to detract from the commercial viability of the aforementioned copyright. Any similarity to any events or persons, either real or fictional, is coincidental and unintended.

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Sunday, January 3, 2100 – 9:30 p.m.
"Force has no place where there is need of skill." – Herodotus

"I didn't realize that a corporate mistress was one of the perks of being a Senior VP," Joey Shigeta commented from the back seat of Patrick Wallace's Ford moments after the businessman settled in for the drive home. "Women like the one in there generally earn more than you do." Wallace's only response was a startled gasp, punctuated by the click of Shigeta cocking the hammer of the 10 mm pistol he placed against the back of Wallace's skull.

"Drive," the kindred commanded. Several minutes of silence followed as Wallace pulled out into the light, late-night traffic. Shigeta allowed his prisoner's mind to wander, imagining all of the bad things that might happen to him. Finally, he decided it was time to drain the tension from the situation. "Nothing is going to happen to you, Mr. Smith," Joey said assuringly, using Wallace's alias as a corporate contact instead of calling him by his real name. "I just want some very simple information; the only reason I even pulled the gun is because I didn't want you getting any ideas about being a hero and blowing my head off with that .357 you have under your seat."

"Fine," Wallace grumbled skeptically. "So what happens now?"

"Just keep driving for a few more minutes," Shigeta ordered. "Go wherever you want – I don't care. I just need to make sure that no one is following us."

"Following us? What the hell is going on?"

"Not sure… Who else was running around MediStem last night?"

"Huh?"

"MediStem," Joey repeated. "Did you have another team in there?"

"Even if we did, you have to know I wouldn't be allowed to talk about it… assuming I'd even know about it," Wallace answered. "It's not like we're dealing with petty government secrets or something – this is corporate business. People tend to disappear when they start spilling corporate secrets."

"But the tone in your voice is clearly telling me you don't have the vaguest idea what I'm talking about," Joey grumbled. "Look, you're a businessman; how about we do some business?"

"How do you mean?" Wallace asked a little too quickly. Joey knew the man was nervous, looking for any way to inject some normalcy into the situation.

"I've already told you there was another team at MediStem last night," Shigeta pointed out. "I'll let you in on what else I know, but I want you to poke around a bit and tell me if there's anything else going on. You get your hands on some nice little information that might please your superiors, and I get the satisfaction of solving a mystery I'd rather not be faced with. I'll admit – I don't like mysteries."

"And I guess I'm also supposed to forget the fact that you just held me at gunpoint?"

"I'd certainly appreciate it," Joey said with a smile, holstering his 10 mm.

"So what do you have for me?"

"The job last night was ridiculously easy until the end, and I had a bad feeling about it from the start," Joey explained. "It didn't make any sense until my decker was poking around inside the corporation's systems. She saw another decker in the matrix… definitely someone unauthorized, given the shrouds he was employing."

"What? A hacker?"

"No, he was inside one of the secure systems," Joey explained. "Whoever it was, he was on-site. We didn't see anyone other than guards, but of course, as most of the security systems were offline, it wasn't like anyone was drawing too much attention to themselves."

"Anything else?"

"My decker says she saw the other guy get frosted when he tried to access something. She has no idea what it was – seems that server was the only one in the matrix that still had AIS programs online. She doesn't think the guy even saw it coming – he got careless after finding all the other ice was offline."

"I assume she didn't know the other decker."

"Didn't look familiar, but some of them change their avatars on a weekly basis. There's no way to know for sure without seeing the guy's meat shell. Hell, for all we know it was a woman, not a guy.

"Look, I know you had us go in to find everything we could on their medicyte program, but is there anything else they could be cooking up at MediStem?"

"The company is over-leveraged as it is with that one R&D program," Wallace explained. "They're basically trying to create a completely synthetic, artificially intelligent immune system that adapts to whatever infects the host. There's no way they could support any other programs; they just don't have the resources."

"Well all I know is what Gina told me after the job. She says there was a server with absolutely insane defenses that frosted a professional jobber before he even knew what was happening. And that was while the server we hit – with all of this supposedly valuable R&D you wanted – was left completely vulnerable."

"Here's another possibility you don't seem to be considering," the businessman suggested, slowing as a lime green city guard cruiser pulled out behind him. "What if the technology at issue was the server itself?"

"Huh?"

"MediStem may very well have bought an experimental AIS program and intentionally hired a team to try breaking into its own system, just so they could see how well the system held up to the attack. That kind of thing happens, you know."

"Shit… I can't believe I never even thought of that," Joey muttered. "Makes perfect sense, at least from a tactical standpoint. Siras would have my head if he were here."

"What was that?"

"Nothing," Joey said, raising his voice barely enough for Wallace to make out his words. "Nothing. Just thinking out loud. You wanna pull over at the next corner?"

"Got some greenies behind us," Wallace answered. "I'm gonna have to take you someplace respectable. They've probably already run the car's I.D., so they know who I am. I don't want any overzealous city guardsman reporting to my superiors that I'm using corporate assets to cut my own shady deals."

"Fine," Joey answered. "Just let me out ASAP."

Wallace drove for several more minutes, mumbling several times about obeying the speed limit and not being able to blow through any red lights. There was a moment of brief tension when the cruiser turned on its lights, but it immediately pulled a U-turn and sped off to some unseen emergency elsewhere in the city. Not five seconds later the car was stopped at the curb and Joey was climbing out.

"I'll ask around a little and see if anyone knows about anything, but I guarantee you it was just a test," Wallace called out.

"Probably," Joey agreed, "but just in case, let me know what you find out, 'k?" The door was halfway closed when he thought better of it and turned back briefly. "Oh, and do me a favor, huh? Don't hire my team if you ever decide that BioChip has to test any new anti-intrusion software of its own."

To be continued………………………………………