Chapter 9

I gazed out the van's rain-splashed windshield at the flounder-like building situated before us. Whereas the other buildings in the Downtown district had grown upward, the Ayanami distribution center had grown outward. A squat administration building stood at the forefront of the complex with the rest of warehouse sprawling out behind it like the bulbous body of some malformed beetle. A tall chain link fence topped with razor wire surrounded the complex, making it look more like a prison than a place of business. From our van in the parking lot, Sugar and I watched as a steady trickle of men, women, and material moved through the front gates and into the facility.

To me, facilities like that one were a constant reminder of the nature of the world today. Despite all of our innovations and advances, we were prisoners—slaves to the need to produce and consume—slaves to the corporate machine. Most people who run the shadows think they're above the corporate run-around, that they're not controlled by mass media bulldrek and corporate advertising, but in reality we're no better off than anyone else. The constant cycle of revenues and expenditures plague us all, just in a different form.

I twisted in my seat, looking back toward the jumble of gear that had recently taken up residence in the rear of the van. A playback unit and a pair of trideo monitors made up the bulk of it, casting a gray glow over the dim interior. Diana lay slumped in the corner, her head canted against the wall and eyes rolled up into the back of her head.

She was traversing the astral plane, watching for things our mundane eyes could not. She called it going "extravehicular," but I called it just plain weird. Her body may have been there, but her mind was not. Watching her do it was like watching someone die—like watching her soul flee, leaving only a hollow shell of flesh. It always unnerved me to. Her body would slump like a limp fish, and then her sightless eyes would roll up into the back of her head. Deckers did the same thing, but this was different from watching Sugar jack into the matrix. It was like everything that had made her Diana was suddenly gone, and all that was left was an empty sack of meat.

I shuddered and turned back toward Sugar where she was busily tapping commands into the slim computer module she held on her lap. "Diana's still zonked out," I announced. "You heard anything thing from Blitz?"

"If I had, do you think I would have kept it to myself?" she asked coldly

"I didn't think it would take twenty freakin' minutes to get a couple of soy dogs and some caf," I grunted.

Sugar didn't respond and kept working at the computer.

I sighed and leaned back in my seat, stuffing my hands under the armpits of my jacket. Everything fell silent except for the beating rain on the roof of the van.

"Are you sure you installed that data tap right?" I finally asked.

She fixed me with a baleful stare. "Yes, I'm sure. This drek takes time, you know. You just worry about shooting things, and I'll worry about the technical stuff, okay?"

My face creased into a frown. "Now hold on a goddamn minute. I was just asking a question. Who stuck a pinecone up your ass?"

"I just hate answering stupid questions," she growled.

"No, you've been acting this way since this whole drek started. What the hell's gotten into you?"

"It's nothing."

"Don't lie to me."

"Goddamn it, fine." She closed the cyberdeck on her lap and sighed, casting a glance over her shoulder to where Diana still lay unconscious in the back. "It's them, okay?"

"Blitz and Diana? What's wrong with them?"

"I don't trust them. I never totally trusted that little slitch when we were working with her, and I sure as hell don't trust that little triad-wanabe she has as a partner. They showed up too quickly to be in it for anything but themselves. Diana's got an agenda of her own, I know it."

I scoffed. "Like what, stealing me away from you?"

She shot me an icy stare that let me know I'd hit a nerve.

I ignored the look and continued. "Diana's got just as much riding on this as we do. Rei could just as easily be after her instead of me. Look, Diana has been there for me as long as I've known her. She's a chummer. I trust her."

"That's what has me worried."

"Just what are you getting at?"

"You trust people too easily, Peaches. You think with your heart and not with your head. That's what gets you in trouble. That's what started this whole mess."

I snorted derisively. "You want to blame all of this shit on me?"

"When all of this first went down, it took forever to make you admit the truth. The evidence was right there in front of you, but you didn't want to believe it because you'd put your trust in that little bitch and she stabbed you in the back."

"Yeah, well it's not that way anymore."

"Bulldrek it isn't. You're doing the same thing with Diana and Blitz—and Michelson for that matter. You're sticking your neck out there for these people without even thinking it through. If you're not careful you're going to get it lopped off, and mine alone with it."

"So what would you have me do? Run away? Bury my head in the sand and hope that all of this blows over?" I sighed, softening my tone. "Sugar, I'm not a damn genius, and I never claimed to be wiz at anything like that. But I am smart enough to know running off with my tail between my legs isn't going to solve anything. If we're going to have a shot at living a decent life any time soon, we're going to have to sort this drek out—and we need their help to do it."

"I just don't trust them."

"I ran the shadows with Diana for two years before I even met you. Whenever I needed her, she was always there for me. I trust her about as much as you can trust anyone in this world. And if she says Blitz scans clean, then I trust her about that too."

"What if they're in on it? I mean, what if Rei hired them to watch us and kill us when the time was right?"

"You mean to tell me that they couldn't have done that already? If Diana wanted to, she probably could have turned our brains to mush half a dozen times over. If they were going to kill us, they would have had plenty of chances to do it already."

Sugar was quiet, but the look on her face made it obvious she wasn't pleased.

"Once we get Rei, everything will be fine. Trust me."

Whatever else she was about to say was cut off as the van's side door jerked open, and Blitz piled in. He shook the rain off his coat like a dog shaking water from its fur and slammed the door behind him. "So, did I miss anything?" he asked as he started to poke through the contents of the paper bag he had in hand.

"Not a peep," I said, twisting around to look back at him. "Anything on the bugs you planted?"

Blitz took a soggy hot dog out of the paper bag and stuffed about half the thing it his mouth at once. He glanced at the monitors in the back. "Just a couple of customers," he said around the wad of food. "I can't see what kind of items they're picking up though. That's Sugar's job."

Sugar started to grumble something, but the lap top began to buzz. She flipped up the screen again. "Uh oh, I think we're live."

"You got somebody, Blitz?" I asked.

"Yeah, I got one."

"Turn the monitor so I can see."

Blitz dutifully twisted the unit around so I could see the grainy black and white picture.

The screen showed a man in his early thirties standing at the pick up counter. His dark hair was cut short, and he wore a dark suit along with a pair of mirrored sunglasses. He had a hard look about him like a chipped yabo who knew how to handle himself when things went to drek.

"Can you get any information on this guy?" I asked Sugar.

"The information he gave the clerk says he is one Emanuel Sanchez, MD."

"He doesn't look like any doctor I've ever seen," Blitz muttered.

"You think it's our guy?" I asked.

"Well if he's not, both us and Rei are going to be drek out of luck. He just bought up what was left of the nanite supply."

I looked back at Blitz where he was busily switching the view on the monitors between different cameras. "It looks like he's headed for the front door. He should be coming out any second now."

I looked out the window, easily picking out our man from the rest of the customers. He stood out like an M-1 tank in the middle of rush hour. I gave a low whistle as he approached a black sedan with the fluid grace of a professional dancer—that, or someone who's had his reflexes wired to hell and back. He was no doctor, of that I could be certain. This guy was a pro.

Diana gave an involuntary kick as her eyes fluttered open and her spirit returned to her meat. She took a gasping breath like a diver who had spent too much time under water, taking a few more gulping breaths before she spoke. "I got his astral signature," she said, struggling to sit upright.

"We may not need it," I replied, gesturing to the black sedan as it pulled out of its parking spot.

Blitz grinned. "Driver, follow that car."

I gave him a one-fingered salute and started up the van, following the other car out of the parking lot. The hunt was on.

The GridGuide system, the electronic structure that guided traffic throughout the metroplex, kept us on his tail as he took a meandering route through Downtown, eventually threading his way through Renton and finally into Auburn. The air in Auburn was filled with a perpetual bank of smog, obscuring the sun's rays from the plebeians on the ground. Still, the outskirts of the district were filled with bustling industrial complexes and corporate shopping centers. As we traveled further into the borough, however, the surroundings started to degrade. The thriving businesses were replaced with sleezy bars, broken parking lots, and abandoned industrial facilities. Hulking buildings stood out against the blank gray sky, left to rust and corrode in decades of acid rain like a misused toy that had been cast out of the corporate playground.

After a few minutes of driving through the industrial wasteland, the car ahead began to slow. I pulled the van off to the curb, watching in nervous silence as the black sedan pulled into the abandoned industrial complex across the street. It cruised behind one of the buildings and then disappeared from sight.

The whole facility, a few acres in size, consisted of a trio of large decayed buildings surrounded by a ramshackle chain link fence. One of the buildings was large and rather wide, an old warehouse by the looks of it. The other two were taller and ringed by a series of catwalks along the outside. A large concrete smoke stack protruded from each one, but both were dormant, sparing the polluted sky from further torture.

Diana and Blitz leaned up into the front compartment, taking in all they could of the facility.

"You think she's in there?" Blitz asked.

"She has to be," Diana said. "Why else would that goon of hers come all the way out here?"

"It would be a good place to lay low, for sure," Sugar commented. "If we hadn't seen the car pull in, we would have never known there was anyone there."

I switched my cyber eyes to the thermographic vision setting and scanned the complex as best I could. Both the warehouse and the rightmost factory buildings were empty, devoid of both power and heat signatures. The left building, on the other hand, was a different story. The thick concrete walls blocked out most of the warmth, but the windows were alive with radiant heat. Whether it was put out by lights, an internal heating system, or a cluster of warm bodies, I couldn't tell, but one thing was for sure. Someone was in there.

"I'm getting a pretty big heat signature from the left-most building," I said. "I'd say that's where our girl is holed up."

"How do you know it's not just a bunch of squatters?" Sugar asked.

"Why else would the Ayanami stooge come all the way out here if he was just going to visit some squatters?" Diana said irritably.

"I just want to know for sure before we blast our way into the place only to find some gutter trash huddled around a garbage fire."

Diana started to respond, but a low whistle from Blitz cut her off. He pointed up toward one of the smoke stacks. "That right there should answer your question."

I activated my vision magnification and zoomed in on the area Blitz had indicated. Sure enough, I could see a lone figure perched atop the catwalk encircling the pinnacle of the stack. I couldn't make out many details from where I was, but he was definitely armed.

"That seems to settle things, now doesn't it?" Diana said smugly

"Can you take a peek inside on the astral?" I asked her.

She gazed at the plant a moment, eyes glazing over as if looking past everything else at something the rest of us couldn't see. Finally she shook her head. "No, someone placed an astral ward over the building. If I go in, I'll have to tear it down, and whoever put it up will know."

"So how do you want to do this?" Blitz asked, looking at Diana.

"My guess is they'll have the entrances covered—probably guards on one, and traps on the others. It wouldn't take much. Just a couple of well-placed claymores could turn you into fish bait if you weren't careful. I'm sure there will be some nasty surprises waiting for us inside."

"What if we make our own entrance?" I asked slyly. "A shaped charge on the south wall, and blam—we've got ourselves abrand new door. Then we just toss a few gas grenades in, and sweep in to grease anyone still standing."

"The plan's got promise," she admitted. "It just might work."

I looked to Sugar. "If we can get the building's address, could you get the plans for the layout?"

"Seattle Public Works should have a copy of the blueprints. I'll give it a look and see what I come up with."

"We're going to have to move in as quickly as possible. Now that she has the nanites, Rei could skip town at any moment."

"Alright, that settles it. The raid will have to happen tonight. Once I contact Michelson about the equipment, we can get down to business."

Blitz and Diana voiced their agreement, and, though she was still a bit uncertain, even Sugar gave me an assenting nod.

"Let's get it done." I picked up my cell phone and made the call.