"Low power start-up, main computer offline." He wanted to talk to Cherry,
but he didn't want to deal with the onboard personality right now. Most of
the lights on his status boards stayed red, but all the systems he needed
cycled red-amber-green. As the screen warmed up he saw Twae watching him
through the windows of the observation deck, and she tossed off a wave as
the conveyor carried the Pi out of the transport. The transport barely
waited for him to clear the hatch before it pulled up the ramp and started
up, rolling back in the direction of the transit tunnels. He activated the
remote on his flatbed, slaving it through the Pi's control board.
As the hauler came to a stop behind him, he eased the Core into the raised restraints and then started the shut down sequence as he felt the bolts shiver shut around him, and the lift begin pulling the Pi to the horizontal.
Once the flatbed was settled he popped the cockpit hatch and slid down the Core's side, climbing back up the side of the hauler to reach the cab. The handle stuck when he tried to open the door, and he balanced precariously on the runner below the cab, pounding on the handle, his shoulder throbbing, until he felt the catch slip, and he could pull the door open and climb in. He sat down, and felt a spring dig sharply into his thigh. The engine turned over with difficulty, and he heard an alarming grind as the flywheels revved up to speed. Like everything he had, the hauler was worn out and long in need of replacing. What money he had went to two things: Cherry Pi, the AI and the Core, in that order of importance.
As he pulled the hauler into the highspeed cargo lanes the heat rising off of the engine made the cab stifling. He cranked up the AC, but the vents only puffed out the occasional burst of cool. By the time he reached his garage in Hirson Underground he was feeling completely drained. He half dropped down the side of the hauler, staggering up to the scanner beside the hangar doors. "Red rover, red rover, let cherry come over," he said, punching a set of numbers into the keypad below the scanner.
He hauled himself hand over hand back into the cab, driving it into the garage. The overhead crane activated automatically as the hauler came to a stop and released the lock bolts. Struggling down from the cab one last time he felt a breeze brush past his cheek. The coolers were already on, blowing cold air out at full. "Thanks babe," he said.
"She's full of holes," Cherry said tartly, assessing the Core's condition.
"Yeah, well, you should see the other guy."
"Let me finish downloading the sensor records and I will." There was a few seconds pause before she spoke again, rather curtly. "He's not full of holes. He's barely even singed."
"He's missing his head!"
"You should have shot him up a little. How could you let a guy get away doing that to your girl?"
"Hey, you're my girl," he said, caressing a nearby console fondly. "If it's any consolation, imagine how much it must have hurt when the discharge from those EMP warheads hit all the hot wire he must've had floating around in his head."
"Hmph," Cherry pouted at him from a nearby screen.
"Stop sulking," he said, swatting at the screen where Cherry squeaked in surprise, grabbing her rear and blushing.
"So what about the contract you got into this whole mess for?"
As Dav begin uploading data chips to Cherry's system he filled her in on the details of the ride home. "Interesting," she said after he finished. "I'm going to have to devote some serious terra cycles to looking all this data over, but I'm going to have to make the same promise that you did: I may get results but it's going to take a while."
"That's what I was expecting. Right now I want you to probe any public nodes you think useful, but if you think that there's even a chance of tripping any watchdogs keep your distance. I think I want to take a scan of the lab Twae woke up in, since I don't think it's taken the opportunity to burn down yet."
Cherry produced a pair of glasses and perched them on her nose as she sat down, laying a large book across her lap. "Rather strange that they would give you all of these," she tipped half the pages over at once, "but wouldn't give you the medical reports." A large pipe appeared in her hand, and she blew a steady stream of cartoony puffs. "I sense a mystery afoot."
"Well, while you're playing detective do you think that you can redirect a few cycles towards finding me anything you can on a bodyguard/troubleshooter named Nemo?"
"Is that a surname?"
"I don't know."
"That doesn't really narrow it down much."
"No need to spend too many cycles on it. Right now it's just an item of minor curiosity. It may be that is story is no deeper than he had Nineball's trust, but..." He plugged a chip in and began glancing over the contents.
"Was she cute?"
"Yes, very cute," Dav replied absently, his attention on the readout in front of him.
"Cuter than me?"
Dav chuckled, finally noticing the setup. "Of course not. No one is cuter than you." He laid his hand on the screen, patting the representation of her leg, then letting his fingers rest on top of it. She blushed and bit her lip, and he smiled slightly as they fell into the pattern of an old game. He gave one of her visual pickups a quick glance, and then returned his attention to the text in front of him. As he read through the chips his hand slowly moved higher on the screen, while Cherry's blush deepened, and when his hand reached a certain height on the screen the hem of her skirt ruffled. Still reading he turned his palm sideways, and then upwards, fingers crooking slightly. Cherry gasped and chewed at her lip as he curled and uncurled his fingers, pretending to be not paying her the slightest heed as her on screen avatar grew more and more excited.
He'd stopped paying attention to the data in front of him entirely by the time Cherry emitted a barely suppressed squeal and leaned back in her seat, panting slightly. He took his hand off the screen, suppressing the small surge of awkwardness he always felt. Sometimes the fact that it was the most significant contact he'd had with a woman in a great many years depressed him, but Cherry fulfilled every need for companionship he had save physical, and there were ways to compensate for that. Most people would view his behavior as hopelessly fetishistic, if not downright disgusting, and it was impossible to simply explain that Cherry was so much more to him than a mere A.I.
On screen, Cherry took a few seconds to straighten out her apparel, a gesture that made Dav feel affectionately warm. It was the human touches like that that made him truly appreciate her.
"I have the results for that search on 'Nemo.' I received no full matches within the parameters you supplied, and only a few partial matches. I don't think that any of them are what you are looking for."
"Probably not, but you're a peach for trying so hard."
She waved a hand. "All part of my job. Do you have any other immediate requests before I start really hitting the books?"
"No, I'm going to start hitting them myself and see if anything leaps out at me. If you notice anything don't hesitate to tell me."
"You got it boss." Her attire abruptly changed to a smart business suit, and she tossed of a quick salute. He gave her a smile in return and then went to work.
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Cherry had fourteen contiguous lines of thought active at any given time. At that particular moment nine were given over to the analyzation, correlation and interpretation of the chips that Dav had given her, one was charged with basic system monitoring, another oversaw the various systems and machinery in the hanger, two were set aside in case anything situation arose that required the devotion of extra cycles, and one that she devoted entirely to Daveren. That one had been idle for a while as he had requested to be left alone unless anything pressing arose. She reactivated it upon noting the time on her chronometer. It had been several minutes since had noted any activity within the hanger so she decided to check up on him.
He'd fallen asleep in front of the terminal, his chin resting against his chest. He rarely ever slept in his room, which by the abstract way that she understood flesh matters, was horribly spartan to begin with, consisting an old futon, a malfunctioning 3vee and not much else. She increased the hangar temperature to what she knew abetted sleep best, watching him through various pickups until his eyelids began fluttering in the manner which indicated his successful descent to REM sleep. He'd doze comfortably enough in the chair, but would awake with the myriad of small aches, that she would chide him 'never would've happened if he'd slept in his bed like a normal person.' She began dimming the lights, slowly so that he wouldn't wake.
She felt a tinge of regret as she watched him sleep, that the adjusting the temperature and lighting was the limit of what she could physically do for him. The screen in front of him blacked, and then was replaced by the picture from the pickup in front of him. Cherry had her on screen render step in from off screen, and drape a blanket around him. "Good night Dav," she said, planting a kiss on his cheek and then curling up on his lap. "Sleep well. I know I will," she whispered, pillowing her head on his shoulder, the screen returning to normal as she allowed thought line to lapse back to dormancy.
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Someone did try and break into the hangar that night, and they came prepared. Cherry became aware of their presence when one of the security monitors picked up an unusual amount of movement for that hour. The intruder avoided the infrequent patches of light and had their head and face concealed beneath a deep hood, so she could not make out a face, and wore heavy enough clothing that she could not even approximate a gender.
Cherry had long ago incorporated the security computers into her own system, sublimating their routines with hers; a fact that she had never quite gotten around to mentioning to Dav. Tonight however she was glad she had. The intruder had obviously been watching the hangar for a while, and been paying very close attention to Dav as he entered, because she produced a holo sphere that emitted an exact replica of Dav as he had appeared earlier that day. "Red rover, red rover let Cherry come over," it repeated in perfect imitation of his voice. The figure then held a small analyzer over the keypad. Cherry recognized the type. Since there was no card reader, or external input that could be hacked into, the analyzer measured the amount and age of oil residue on the keypad, and reconstructed the password sequence. The analyzer did an excellent job, recreating the password sequence perfectly. It would've fooled the security program completely. It's susceptibility to tricks such as this was one of the reasons that she had decided to do its job in the first place, but the intruder to be did such a good job that the prompting of her security routines were tempting her to open the door. The only reason she didn't was because she knew Dav was sleeping soundly inside, and had said nothing about receiving visitors. Especially the really suspicious kind.
Cherry took control of the small panel by the door, projecting a cartoonish caricature of herself. "I'm sorry, but you have entered an incorrect passcode." She frowned and shook her finger. "Please remember that one more incorrect try, and I'll have to activate the security cannons." Two machine guns dropped from the top of the screen, blasting away with a deafening RAT- TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT. The figure gave a start at the sudden noise, and then turned heel and ran back into the darkness.
Abstractly, Cherry shook her head. Core thieves sure were becoming a persistently wily bunch. However, under her eyes, they hadn't stood a chance of breaking in, so she saw no reason to mention it to Dav.
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Dav massaged a crick in the small of his back as he looked the screen over. Cherry made a small noise, but she refrained from her usual reproach. He appreciated her restraint, but missed the chiding, just a little. "I think that starting in the lab will be best. Is there anything notable about it in the Tawara city records?"
"Nothing on the surface." Cherry's avatar suddenly sprouted a tail and fangs. "Want me to give it the full treatment?"
"Yes, please." He shrugged out of yesterday's clothes and stepped into the shower. He'd almost stopped noticing that the water was the perfect temperature coming right out of the tap, or that it got just a little hotter when he turned his back to the spray to work out the knots in his muscles. "How's the repair invoice coming?" he asked as he toweled himself dry.
"You're only going to have a hundred kaseys left in your account, and that's including what you get for the sale of scrap."
"Progtech has been dragging its feet about paying up the last contract. They've been trying to duck payment, citing 'failure of duties.' It's not my fault that they kept us in the dark, and unsupported about what was really going on out there. If they don't shell out soon, I'll throw 'death through deliberate misrepresentation' their way, and see if that doesn't loosen things up. They let Chaevers burn out there. I'm not going to let them burn me here."
"That's playing some serious hardball."
"I've got an airtight contract to back it up, and unless they want to start finding it really hard getting Cores to sign on, they'd better remember that you don't try and screw a Raven." He ran a hand back through his hair, feeling him self working up a good case of pissed off. "Shit, I never would've had to deal with this bullshit before-"
"-when it meant something to be a Raven." Cherry managed to make her voice sound both reproachful and sad. "But being a Raven doesn't mean what it used to. You keep forgetting that 'Raven' is no longer an invocation of respect."
"Whatever," Dav said, biting back a much more bitter response, and he turned, jumping the railing and dropping down in the bed of his mini truck. "I'll be back late. Don't wait up," he said as he got into the cab. The satisfying thing to do then would've been to screech out of the hanger, but the battery refused to turn over, and he had to wait a couple of minutes while the ignition gathered its charge. At which point he was no longer angry, just hot headed and tense, and pointedly did not look at Cherry's pickups as he pulled out. By the time he'd hit the high speed tubes and the speedometer had slipped to well above two hundred kph his temper was back to normal, and he chewed a thumb nail worriedly. It wasn't like him to blow up like that at Cherry, but she had managed to really hit a nerve.
He'd been blase enough in admitting the fact to Twae yesterday, but it didn't hurt so much when you prodded to wound yourself. To have it thrown back in his face and so soon hurt a lot more than he'd expected. What made it really sting was that they had both been right. It wouldn't have taken threats to make a corporation owe up, even on a contract that had ended so disastrously, five years. You never crossed a Raven. Ever.
It wasn't even because the Raven's had been some sort of all for one brotherhood or something. They fought and killed each other as easily as everyone else. No, when you hired a Raven, you were hiring the best, and no matter what happened, they gave you their best, and you respected that.
Now, the myth was dispelled, the respect was all but gone. Being a Raven was no longer a mark of distinction the raised you above the crowd. You had to fight tooth and nail just to get your do. He felt his eyes start to burn. It simply wasn't fair. He'd thought that he'd finally found a place in the world where he fit in, only to have it torn away form him again. He pounded a fist against his thigh. He wanted a cigarette.
_Never knows best._
"I'm sorry Sharon," he whispered, and allowed himself the luxury of a tear.
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He drove slowly as he neared the location of the lab, only partly because of the condition of the road. The cab was small, and he hadn't had much chance to move his legs since getting to the high speed tubes, and subsequently he'd gotten a cramp in his calf. The warehouse zone was a singularly decrepit place though, many of the warehouse no more than burned out, falling down hulks. It looked like this part of the city had been ravaged in the proto unit attacks fifteen years ago, and then simply abandoned. Several times he had to drive around the wrecked remains of MTs, many of which looked like they had been chewed on, and once he had to take a three block detour around a crater of devastation that was centered around what looked like it had once been a Core. He found it slightly strange that none of them had been claimed for scrap. It was possible that the mere rumor of lingering proto units were enough to keep people out. Pockets of infestation still popped up from time to time, and although they were not an active threat without their queens, they were still horrifyingly lethal against anything smaller than a heavy MT.
He suddenly felt horribly exposed. The truck was for when he needed to get to places too small or too impractical for the transport. It had a bed large enough for small core parts, but it was light, even for a civilian vehicle, and certainly didn't have anything that he could even pretend was armor, much less a weapon. He had a heavy needler tucked under the seat for personal protection, but its effectiveness was questionable against flesh, much less metal.
He finally found the correct warehouse, undistinguishable from the rest, if he hadn't known to look for it. He circled it once. There were several freight entrances, one looking big enough to fit a small Core, although they were all tightly shut. He finally found a regular door that looked like it might have been opened within the past two years. He parked the truck in front of it, and clipped the needler to his belt. If nothing else, he found the weight reassuring.
The warehouse did not strike him as particularly impressive from the inside either. It had been one of the countless facilities used to vatgrow protein, as most of the world's arable farmland was aboveground and hopelessly irradiated. It held about a hundred presses, making him wonder just how Nemo had figured out which one hid the entrance to the lab.
He finally found it himself, if only because the press was still rolled back from the hatch it had been concealing. Idly, he examined it to see what distinguished it from the other presses, but he could find nothing. Something began to tickle his figurative nose, but it took him a moment to figure out what it was. There were traction marks on the floor where the press had been slid back, but no coinciding tracks from what had done the pushing. He stored several pictures of both the press and floor in his darapad, and then put the matter out of his mind.
He heard a distinct click come from the direction of the press as he opened the hatch, causing him to drop it and scramble backwards. The press however made no more noise, nor moved, nor even showed a mild proclivity towards song and dance, so, holding the needler in one hand, Dav again opened the hatch. Again he head a click from the press, but nothing else happened, even after he threw the hatch wide open. He climbed down the ladder, finding almost absolute darkness at the bottom. He pulled an all-around from his pocket, and in its soft light he could see the entirety of the lab. It wasn't very large, but it was absolutely crammed with equipment. Standby light shone in a couple of places, but most were dark.
After a bit of searching he found the primary power switch. Throwing it activated the overhead lights, but disappointingly little else. He then turned his attention to the cryo pod, pods as it turned out to be. There were three of them, Twae's obviously having been the one with the cover still raised. The other two were not only closed, but covered with a layer of frost, making it impossible to see what was inside. After scraping away the ice he found them disappointingly, but not surprisingly, empty. They were in standby mode, kept cold to maintain their delicate systems. He took pictures of everything for later analyzation, finding the central computer interface in the process. He decided to leave everything in standby mode, but inserted a high capacity crystal chip into the data slot, and started a full dump of everything in the system.
As he waited for the download to finish, he set up an air catcher, to grab any biological debris floating around the lab. If he could get a good DNA sample of everyone who'd been in the lab, maybe even be able to get a match that let him figure out who Nineball had really been, it would go a long way in helping him finish this contract.
He rested a hand on one of the frosted tubes, feeling the cold leech the sensation from his hand. He wasn't expecting much from the computer. If it had been that easy, Twae would have done it herself already.
He shook out his hand, trying to return the feeling to it as he took a closer look at the equipment. Much of it seemed automated, or looked like it could be accessed remotely, which made a certain degree of sense, since Nineball certainly could not have taken time out from being the top Raven to spend long stretches in the lab. A lot of equipment seemed to feed into the cryo tubes, and as he looked closer, he noticed that they seemed to possess a complexity unnecessary for simple biological cold storage. He took more pictures. This stuff was pretty far beyond him, but it might give him an idea as to what should be his next step.
He pocketed the crystal when the download finished, and he decided that he should come back with more equipment and do a full forensic sweep. There should only be a few different sets of fingerprints in the lab, and they would be easier to identify then DNA samples. When he checked it, the air catcher had gotten a few good hits, and he downloaded these to his datapad for a preliminary analysis. Most of it was probably detrius that he had shed himself, but he'd have to wait until he could download the catcher's results to Cherry to get a thorough analysis.
On his way out of the lab, he stopped to examine the hatch. A little bit of searching revealed a catch, with a matching socket in the frame. He took pictures of both, and then climbed out, throwing the door shut again. He was busy making sure that he had everything secured, and giving the warehouse one last look as he stepped back out into the street, and so did not look up until he heard the sound of metal on metal behind him. He turned and raised his eyes to find himself staring down a gun barrel the width of his head.
"Oh," he said evenly. "Shit."
***Author's Notes***
Well, I'm getting closer to the explanation behind Dav's use of 'Never Knows Best.' That however, is all the further information on that topic for a while. I've got other things to do, like write giant robot fights. ^_^; Has anyone else noticed that for a fic about a game that is itself all about giant robots duking it out, that there has been a distinctive lack of giant robots duking it out?
As the hauler came to a stop behind him, he eased the Core into the raised restraints and then started the shut down sequence as he felt the bolts shiver shut around him, and the lift begin pulling the Pi to the horizontal.
Once the flatbed was settled he popped the cockpit hatch and slid down the Core's side, climbing back up the side of the hauler to reach the cab. The handle stuck when he tried to open the door, and he balanced precariously on the runner below the cab, pounding on the handle, his shoulder throbbing, until he felt the catch slip, and he could pull the door open and climb in. He sat down, and felt a spring dig sharply into his thigh. The engine turned over with difficulty, and he heard an alarming grind as the flywheels revved up to speed. Like everything he had, the hauler was worn out and long in need of replacing. What money he had went to two things: Cherry Pi, the AI and the Core, in that order of importance.
As he pulled the hauler into the highspeed cargo lanes the heat rising off of the engine made the cab stifling. He cranked up the AC, but the vents only puffed out the occasional burst of cool. By the time he reached his garage in Hirson Underground he was feeling completely drained. He half dropped down the side of the hauler, staggering up to the scanner beside the hangar doors. "Red rover, red rover, let cherry come over," he said, punching a set of numbers into the keypad below the scanner.
He hauled himself hand over hand back into the cab, driving it into the garage. The overhead crane activated automatically as the hauler came to a stop and released the lock bolts. Struggling down from the cab one last time he felt a breeze brush past his cheek. The coolers were already on, blowing cold air out at full. "Thanks babe," he said.
"She's full of holes," Cherry said tartly, assessing the Core's condition.
"Yeah, well, you should see the other guy."
"Let me finish downloading the sensor records and I will." There was a few seconds pause before she spoke again, rather curtly. "He's not full of holes. He's barely even singed."
"He's missing his head!"
"You should have shot him up a little. How could you let a guy get away doing that to your girl?"
"Hey, you're my girl," he said, caressing a nearby console fondly. "If it's any consolation, imagine how much it must have hurt when the discharge from those EMP warheads hit all the hot wire he must've had floating around in his head."
"Hmph," Cherry pouted at him from a nearby screen.
"Stop sulking," he said, swatting at the screen where Cherry squeaked in surprise, grabbing her rear and blushing.
"So what about the contract you got into this whole mess for?"
As Dav begin uploading data chips to Cherry's system he filled her in on the details of the ride home. "Interesting," she said after he finished. "I'm going to have to devote some serious terra cycles to looking all this data over, but I'm going to have to make the same promise that you did: I may get results but it's going to take a while."
"That's what I was expecting. Right now I want you to probe any public nodes you think useful, but if you think that there's even a chance of tripping any watchdogs keep your distance. I think I want to take a scan of the lab Twae woke up in, since I don't think it's taken the opportunity to burn down yet."
Cherry produced a pair of glasses and perched them on her nose as she sat down, laying a large book across her lap. "Rather strange that they would give you all of these," she tipped half the pages over at once, "but wouldn't give you the medical reports." A large pipe appeared in her hand, and she blew a steady stream of cartoony puffs. "I sense a mystery afoot."
"Well, while you're playing detective do you think that you can redirect a few cycles towards finding me anything you can on a bodyguard/troubleshooter named Nemo?"
"Is that a surname?"
"I don't know."
"That doesn't really narrow it down much."
"No need to spend too many cycles on it. Right now it's just an item of minor curiosity. It may be that is story is no deeper than he had Nineball's trust, but..." He plugged a chip in and began glancing over the contents.
"Was she cute?"
"Yes, very cute," Dav replied absently, his attention on the readout in front of him.
"Cuter than me?"
Dav chuckled, finally noticing the setup. "Of course not. No one is cuter than you." He laid his hand on the screen, patting the representation of her leg, then letting his fingers rest on top of it. She blushed and bit her lip, and he smiled slightly as they fell into the pattern of an old game. He gave one of her visual pickups a quick glance, and then returned his attention to the text in front of him. As he read through the chips his hand slowly moved higher on the screen, while Cherry's blush deepened, and when his hand reached a certain height on the screen the hem of her skirt ruffled. Still reading he turned his palm sideways, and then upwards, fingers crooking slightly. Cherry gasped and chewed at her lip as he curled and uncurled his fingers, pretending to be not paying her the slightest heed as her on screen avatar grew more and more excited.
He'd stopped paying attention to the data in front of him entirely by the time Cherry emitted a barely suppressed squeal and leaned back in her seat, panting slightly. He took his hand off the screen, suppressing the small surge of awkwardness he always felt. Sometimes the fact that it was the most significant contact he'd had with a woman in a great many years depressed him, but Cherry fulfilled every need for companionship he had save physical, and there were ways to compensate for that. Most people would view his behavior as hopelessly fetishistic, if not downright disgusting, and it was impossible to simply explain that Cherry was so much more to him than a mere A.I.
On screen, Cherry took a few seconds to straighten out her apparel, a gesture that made Dav feel affectionately warm. It was the human touches like that that made him truly appreciate her.
"I have the results for that search on 'Nemo.' I received no full matches within the parameters you supplied, and only a few partial matches. I don't think that any of them are what you are looking for."
"Probably not, but you're a peach for trying so hard."
She waved a hand. "All part of my job. Do you have any other immediate requests before I start really hitting the books?"
"No, I'm going to start hitting them myself and see if anything leaps out at me. If you notice anything don't hesitate to tell me."
"You got it boss." Her attire abruptly changed to a smart business suit, and she tossed of a quick salute. He gave her a smile in return and then went to work.
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Cherry had fourteen contiguous lines of thought active at any given time. At that particular moment nine were given over to the analyzation, correlation and interpretation of the chips that Dav had given her, one was charged with basic system monitoring, another oversaw the various systems and machinery in the hanger, two were set aside in case anything situation arose that required the devotion of extra cycles, and one that she devoted entirely to Daveren. That one had been idle for a while as he had requested to be left alone unless anything pressing arose. She reactivated it upon noting the time on her chronometer. It had been several minutes since had noted any activity within the hanger so she decided to check up on him.
He'd fallen asleep in front of the terminal, his chin resting against his chest. He rarely ever slept in his room, which by the abstract way that she understood flesh matters, was horribly spartan to begin with, consisting an old futon, a malfunctioning 3vee and not much else. She increased the hangar temperature to what she knew abetted sleep best, watching him through various pickups until his eyelids began fluttering in the manner which indicated his successful descent to REM sleep. He'd doze comfortably enough in the chair, but would awake with the myriad of small aches, that she would chide him 'never would've happened if he'd slept in his bed like a normal person.' She began dimming the lights, slowly so that he wouldn't wake.
She felt a tinge of regret as she watched him sleep, that the adjusting the temperature and lighting was the limit of what she could physically do for him. The screen in front of him blacked, and then was replaced by the picture from the pickup in front of him. Cherry had her on screen render step in from off screen, and drape a blanket around him. "Good night Dav," she said, planting a kiss on his cheek and then curling up on his lap. "Sleep well. I know I will," she whispered, pillowing her head on his shoulder, the screen returning to normal as she allowed thought line to lapse back to dormancy.
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Someone did try and break into the hangar that night, and they came prepared. Cherry became aware of their presence when one of the security monitors picked up an unusual amount of movement for that hour. The intruder avoided the infrequent patches of light and had their head and face concealed beneath a deep hood, so she could not make out a face, and wore heavy enough clothing that she could not even approximate a gender.
Cherry had long ago incorporated the security computers into her own system, sublimating their routines with hers; a fact that she had never quite gotten around to mentioning to Dav. Tonight however she was glad she had. The intruder had obviously been watching the hangar for a while, and been paying very close attention to Dav as he entered, because she produced a holo sphere that emitted an exact replica of Dav as he had appeared earlier that day. "Red rover, red rover let Cherry come over," it repeated in perfect imitation of his voice. The figure then held a small analyzer over the keypad. Cherry recognized the type. Since there was no card reader, or external input that could be hacked into, the analyzer measured the amount and age of oil residue on the keypad, and reconstructed the password sequence. The analyzer did an excellent job, recreating the password sequence perfectly. It would've fooled the security program completely. It's susceptibility to tricks such as this was one of the reasons that she had decided to do its job in the first place, but the intruder to be did such a good job that the prompting of her security routines were tempting her to open the door. The only reason she didn't was because she knew Dav was sleeping soundly inside, and had said nothing about receiving visitors. Especially the really suspicious kind.
Cherry took control of the small panel by the door, projecting a cartoonish caricature of herself. "I'm sorry, but you have entered an incorrect passcode." She frowned and shook her finger. "Please remember that one more incorrect try, and I'll have to activate the security cannons." Two machine guns dropped from the top of the screen, blasting away with a deafening RAT- TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT. The figure gave a start at the sudden noise, and then turned heel and ran back into the darkness.
Abstractly, Cherry shook her head. Core thieves sure were becoming a persistently wily bunch. However, under her eyes, they hadn't stood a chance of breaking in, so she saw no reason to mention it to Dav.
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Dav massaged a crick in the small of his back as he looked the screen over. Cherry made a small noise, but she refrained from her usual reproach. He appreciated her restraint, but missed the chiding, just a little. "I think that starting in the lab will be best. Is there anything notable about it in the Tawara city records?"
"Nothing on the surface." Cherry's avatar suddenly sprouted a tail and fangs. "Want me to give it the full treatment?"
"Yes, please." He shrugged out of yesterday's clothes and stepped into the shower. He'd almost stopped noticing that the water was the perfect temperature coming right out of the tap, or that it got just a little hotter when he turned his back to the spray to work out the knots in his muscles. "How's the repair invoice coming?" he asked as he toweled himself dry.
"You're only going to have a hundred kaseys left in your account, and that's including what you get for the sale of scrap."
"Progtech has been dragging its feet about paying up the last contract. They've been trying to duck payment, citing 'failure of duties.' It's not my fault that they kept us in the dark, and unsupported about what was really going on out there. If they don't shell out soon, I'll throw 'death through deliberate misrepresentation' their way, and see if that doesn't loosen things up. They let Chaevers burn out there. I'm not going to let them burn me here."
"That's playing some serious hardball."
"I've got an airtight contract to back it up, and unless they want to start finding it really hard getting Cores to sign on, they'd better remember that you don't try and screw a Raven." He ran a hand back through his hair, feeling him self working up a good case of pissed off. "Shit, I never would've had to deal with this bullshit before-"
"-when it meant something to be a Raven." Cherry managed to make her voice sound both reproachful and sad. "But being a Raven doesn't mean what it used to. You keep forgetting that 'Raven' is no longer an invocation of respect."
"Whatever," Dav said, biting back a much more bitter response, and he turned, jumping the railing and dropping down in the bed of his mini truck. "I'll be back late. Don't wait up," he said as he got into the cab. The satisfying thing to do then would've been to screech out of the hanger, but the battery refused to turn over, and he had to wait a couple of minutes while the ignition gathered its charge. At which point he was no longer angry, just hot headed and tense, and pointedly did not look at Cherry's pickups as he pulled out. By the time he'd hit the high speed tubes and the speedometer had slipped to well above two hundred kph his temper was back to normal, and he chewed a thumb nail worriedly. It wasn't like him to blow up like that at Cherry, but she had managed to really hit a nerve.
He'd been blase enough in admitting the fact to Twae yesterday, but it didn't hurt so much when you prodded to wound yourself. To have it thrown back in his face and so soon hurt a lot more than he'd expected. What made it really sting was that they had both been right. It wouldn't have taken threats to make a corporation owe up, even on a contract that had ended so disastrously, five years. You never crossed a Raven. Ever.
It wasn't even because the Raven's had been some sort of all for one brotherhood or something. They fought and killed each other as easily as everyone else. No, when you hired a Raven, you were hiring the best, and no matter what happened, they gave you their best, and you respected that.
Now, the myth was dispelled, the respect was all but gone. Being a Raven was no longer a mark of distinction the raised you above the crowd. You had to fight tooth and nail just to get your do. He felt his eyes start to burn. It simply wasn't fair. He'd thought that he'd finally found a place in the world where he fit in, only to have it torn away form him again. He pounded a fist against his thigh. He wanted a cigarette.
_Never knows best._
"I'm sorry Sharon," he whispered, and allowed himself the luxury of a tear.
-------------------------------------------------------
He drove slowly as he neared the location of the lab, only partly because of the condition of the road. The cab was small, and he hadn't had much chance to move his legs since getting to the high speed tubes, and subsequently he'd gotten a cramp in his calf. The warehouse zone was a singularly decrepit place though, many of the warehouse no more than burned out, falling down hulks. It looked like this part of the city had been ravaged in the proto unit attacks fifteen years ago, and then simply abandoned. Several times he had to drive around the wrecked remains of MTs, many of which looked like they had been chewed on, and once he had to take a three block detour around a crater of devastation that was centered around what looked like it had once been a Core. He found it slightly strange that none of them had been claimed for scrap. It was possible that the mere rumor of lingering proto units were enough to keep people out. Pockets of infestation still popped up from time to time, and although they were not an active threat without their queens, they were still horrifyingly lethal against anything smaller than a heavy MT.
He suddenly felt horribly exposed. The truck was for when he needed to get to places too small or too impractical for the transport. It had a bed large enough for small core parts, but it was light, even for a civilian vehicle, and certainly didn't have anything that he could even pretend was armor, much less a weapon. He had a heavy needler tucked under the seat for personal protection, but its effectiveness was questionable against flesh, much less metal.
He finally found the correct warehouse, undistinguishable from the rest, if he hadn't known to look for it. He circled it once. There were several freight entrances, one looking big enough to fit a small Core, although they were all tightly shut. He finally found a regular door that looked like it might have been opened within the past two years. He parked the truck in front of it, and clipped the needler to his belt. If nothing else, he found the weight reassuring.
The warehouse did not strike him as particularly impressive from the inside either. It had been one of the countless facilities used to vatgrow protein, as most of the world's arable farmland was aboveground and hopelessly irradiated. It held about a hundred presses, making him wonder just how Nemo had figured out which one hid the entrance to the lab.
He finally found it himself, if only because the press was still rolled back from the hatch it had been concealing. Idly, he examined it to see what distinguished it from the other presses, but he could find nothing. Something began to tickle his figurative nose, but it took him a moment to figure out what it was. There were traction marks on the floor where the press had been slid back, but no coinciding tracks from what had done the pushing. He stored several pictures of both the press and floor in his darapad, and then put the matter out of his mind.
He heard a distinct click come from the direction of the press as he opened the hatch, causing him to drop it and scramble backwards. The press however made no more noise, nor moved, nor even showed a mild proclivity towards song and dance, so, holding the needler in one hand, Dav again opened the hatch. Again he head a click from the press, but nothing else happened, even after he threw the hatch wide open. He climbed down the ladder, finding almost absolute darkness at the bottom. He pulled an all-around from his pocket, and in its soft light he could see the entirety of the lab. It wasn't very large, but it was absolutely crammed with equipment. Standby light shone in a couple of places, but most were dark.
After a bit of searching he found the primary power switch. Throwing it activated the overhead lights, but disappointingly little else. He then turned his attention to the cryo pod, pods as it turned out to be. There were three of them, Twae's obviously having been the one with the cover still raised. The other two were not only closed, but covered with a layer of frost, making it impossible to see what was inside. After scraping away the ice he found them disappointingly, but not surprisingly, empty. They were in standby mode, kept cold to maintain their delicate systems. He took pictures of everything for later analyzation, finding the central computer interface in the process. He decided to leave everything in standby mode, but inserted a high capacity crystal chip into the data slot, and started a full dump of everything in the system.
As he waited for the download to finish, he set up an air catcher, to grab any biological debris floating around the lab. If he could get a good DNA sample of everyone who'd been in the lab, maybe even be able to get a match that let him figure out who Nineball had really been, it would go a long way in helping him finish this contract.
He rested a hand on one of the frosted tubes, feeling the cold leech the sensation from his hand. He wasn't expecting much from the computer. If it had been that easy, Twae would have done it herself already.
He shook out his hand, trying to return the feeling to it as he took a closer look at the equipment. Much of it seemed automated, or looked like it could be accessed remotely, which made a certain degree of sense, since Nineball certainly could not have taken time out from being the top Raven to spend long stretches in the lab. A lot of equipment seemed to feed into the cryo tubes, and as he looked closer, he noticed that they seemed to possess a complexity unnecessary for simple biological cold storage. He took more pictures. This stuff was pretty far beyond him, but it might give him an idea as to what should be his next step.
He pocketed the crystal when the download finished, and he decided that he should come back with more equipment and do a full forensic sweep. There should only be a few different sets of fingerprints in the lab, and they would be easier to identify then DNA samples. When he checked it, the air catcher had gotten a few good hits, and he downloaded these to his datapad for a preliminary analysis. Most of it was probably detrius that he had shed himself, but he'd have to wait until he could download the catcher's results to Cherry to get a thorough analysis.
On his way out of the lab, he stopped to examine the hatch. A little bit of searching revealed a catch, with a matching socket in the frame. He took pictures of both, and then climbed out, throwing the door shut again. He was busy making sure that he had everything secured, and giving the warehouse one last look as he stepped back out into the street, and so did not look up until he heard the sound of metal on metal behind him. He turned and raised his eyes to find himself staring down a gun barrel the width of his head.
"Oh," he said evenly. "Shit."
***Author's Notes***
Well, I'm getting closer to the explanation behind Dav's use of 'Never Knows Best.' That however, is all the further information on that topic for a while. I've got other things to do, like write giant robot fights. ^_^; Has anyone else noticed that for a fic about a game that is itself all about giant robots duking it out, that there has been a distinctive lack of giant robots duking it out?
