"You don't care much about being seen, do you?" Xu asked, when they had left the restricted sixth floor and were slowly making their way down again. "The muscle back there... the fact that you didn't shoot me immediately..."
Banks shrugged. She was a little shaky, but was considerably better at hiding it. "Got to make a name for myself. Can't do that if no one knows who I am, can I?"
Xu scoffed, but he was hardly in a place to lecture her, or to question her motivations. "I don't think he saw me," he said instead.
"Nah, I don't reckon he did. But if yer worried, ya could always go back and, ya know..." She jerked a thumb across her throat, then grinned at the distaste on his face. "See, I figured. Ya're not all bad, doc. For a lily-livered civilian."
"What was that book you stole?"
"Ya ask too many questions."
"That is entirely possible," he answered lightly, and Banks snorted. He gestured for a stop and knelt down to briskly disassemble his EMP pack and tuck its components back into the various pockets of his bag. They were once again on a floor he was technically authorised to be on, so he was marginally more at ease, but those multiple close calls were still a little too fresh to let him relax.
For half a minute or so, something alarmingly close to panic had gripped them when they reached the locked door and Banks's cloned keycard, now compromised, predictably failed to work. They'd been stupidly lucky - she'd doubled back to check the insensate guard's pockets and had found a replacement. He didn't particularly want to consider how it might have gone otherwise.
He finished with his EMP pack. Banks was still watching him when he got up and readjusted his bag over his shoulder.
"Well. Time for me to scram," she said. Her posture had changed — it was oddly careful now. Like she was anticipating trouble.
"I have no plans to get in your way," Xu said in a measured tone.
"And what about ya?"
"I'm supposed to continue my rounds. Which I imagine will be interrupted as soon as there's a building-wide intruder alert, in approximately, oh, perhaps a minute or so, as soon as they've discovered the body. Do not concern yourself, I'm not about to magically stumble onto any leads."
"Yer sure yer up for that? They know I wasn't working alone now. They'll be looking into anything that sticks out, and that's ya."
"It is hardly the first time I've had to talk my way out of discrepancies like that. I'll manage."
"A good liar, are ya?" It sounded like a challenge, and Xu faltered.
"...When I have to be," he said carefully. She was watching him a little too closely.
"I'd rather ya kept yer head down. It's nothing personal, ya know. I just need my head start."
"You'll have it."
"Hmpf."
She didn't look happy, but she turned on her heel and kept walking. Xu followed her. They kept moving towards the stairwell that would take them to the next level down. He wondered if she was going to sneak out through the party or had some other escape avenue lined up, but it was best not to ask. By all rights they ought to have gone their separate ways already, but he was... hesitant. Almost sentimental.
He had an ease of camaraderie with her that made him conscious of how rarely he actually experienced authentic interactions. It hardly mattered that she was female, Irish, a "hardened criminal" (as per her own words), and close to half his age. Being relieved of the obligation to act the part of the upstanding citizen had been incredibly freeing, even if she didn't trust him. It occurred to him that, despite the laws of sanity, he probably missed Sharp.
She stopped at the stairwell and turned around.
"Reckon we'd best call it here," she said. "And listen, doc, about yer favour — ya know my name now, ya can look me up if ya need anything. I'll consider it."
"Understood," Xu nodded sedately. He was starting to crash from the adrenaline, and the night ahead was sure to be a long one.
Then she handed him back his wallet — yet another thing he'd all but forgotten about. He couldn't fail to notice that it was a few hundred credits lighter.
"Did you really just rob me? After everything we've been through?" he asked incredulously.
Banks smirked at him. "Ya said ya weren't in it for the money, and there's others need it more. Such as me." She winked. "Besides, it'll look less suspicious. When the time comes."
"If you say so," Xu said, somehow taking this in stride. He glanced at his tablet — they were running out of time. "May I give a parting word of advice?" he said.
She looked amused. "Let's hear it."
"As much as I've enjoyed this little adventure..." He gestured at the gun. "The next time someone tells you to wait — don't."
"...Huh," she said. The look in her eyes was strange. "Thanks, doc. I'll keep that in mind."
Xu held out a hand, and Banks shook it. She winced a little, though he doubted his grip was any more impressive than last time.
"Well. Safe travels," he said.
Xu turned his back on her and began to walk away, eyes on his tablet to track down the nearest console so he could return to his 'duties'. After a moment or two, he realised Banks was still there.
"Just one change of plans..." she started. There was something in her tone and Xu began to turn, his hackles raised.
"'Yer skin, well intact'," she said. "Don't worry, doc, ya can thank me later."
Xu heard the thwip of the Neural D.A.R.T., and—
Alright, so she felt a little bad about that. Thieves made their own luck, though. She was still alive because she'd learned that lesson early.
Down two more floors — dodge the patrols with ease — then mix into the crowd of drunk guests as the facility-wide alert comes just just when he said it would. Take care not to get distracted by how pretty some of the bodyguards are — because they'd probably chew her up and spit her out as soon as look at her — and not to grab more than five (make that six) tiny little snacks off the buffet table on her way out. Make her way to the supply exit civilians aren't supposed to know about. The access panel for it actually requires a fair bit of hacking, getting elbow-deep into the system before she can slip out. Get a little too close to getting caught, more times than one, but easy as pie.
And just like that, she was out. Free to cross the street and follow the meticulous instruction on getting through some more doors and up a few more staircases with minimal fuss. This building was rundown beneath the shiny facade, and the walls were peeling. The exterior had been carefully maintained to keep up appearances, but the interior's years were numbered. Soon it would all start coming down, collapsing in on itself just like a house of cards.
(Just like the corps. A girl could dream.)
Her client was standing at the edge of the rooftop. Unarmed — or at least his favourite toy was nowhere to be seen. His pose was casual — so casual that according to all the laws of visuals, he should have been smoking languidly, blowing puffs into the cool early morning air as he waited. The image was so clear in her mind that she blurted as much, by way of greeting, as she approached.
"Ya don't smoke?"
He turned slowly and looked her up and down.
"It's a bad habit to leave stubs everywhere," he explained. He likely knew she still had her D.A.R.T. gun on her. He likely didn't care.
"I thought yer shite was legal."
He shrugged. "Laws change. Bad habits stay," he said, and took a step towards her. "Do you have it?"
He loomed. He was tall, of course, but something about him would have probably found a way of looming even if he were five feet short.
Jolie "Banks" Murphy resisted the urge to take a step back and sunk to her knees, keeping the man in her sights as she dug into her bag.
Civilian Heroes Of The Resource Wars In The Middle-East. Published in 2059, and in nearly mint condition. She knew better than to ask.
He wasn't even the first client to hire her to steal a book. FTM had cornered the e-book market years ago, but it wasn't until 2060 that they were finally able to push for the demolition of public libraries and the recycling or decommissioning of roughly 95% of all existing printed material. Any books deemed in accordance with corporate values and fit for republishing with paper and ink had had to go through the channels of the new official corporate publishing houses. The few older books that had escaped decommissioning remained collector's items, lining the bookshelves of the eccentric, the intellectual and the wealthy. Murphy knew those numbers because a lengthy rant by an elderly client and former librarian had been forever seared into her brain. Those had been some easy jobs, but she'd always felt bad for them. Most of her targets hadn't been CEOs, just people with dusty attics.
He took the book like it was worth more than that tiara hidden away in her bag. She tried not to stare as he flipped through the pages, then shut it gently and set it down on a blanket he'd spread over the cold concrete. Mystery of the year what a man like him would want with a book like that. But not her place to wonder. She didn't care, as long as she got paid. Besides, this was a million miles better than running drugs.
"Hm," he said. It was a satisfied sort of 'hm'. It meant a job well done, but she still kept her hand on the taser in her pocket, just in case. People got weird about personal things, and this looked personal. Sometimes they didn't like to leave witnesses.
The man dug out his wallet and started counting credits. She relaxed.
Decker knew when he was being fucked with.
He knew, even more intimately than that, the feeling of having the band of intruders just slip through his fingers. It happened rarely, when he actually had the resources and time to do security in the scope he liked, but the nails-on-chalkboard feeling of it stuck with him for days, like an itch in his skin.
Having two of his personnel knocked out cold was just adding insult to injury, but at least he hadn't had to deal with body bags.
So far. Night's still young.
Grim little joke. Har har. Let's take the small blessings where we can.
Such as the fact that Sven, the patrol team C guy, was already walking it off, and the freelance contractor was pretty damn unfazed if his elocution was anything to go by.
"Slow down," he said, "I just got here. What was that you were saying about the access codes?"
The professor turned to look at him. Huddling under his shock blanket, he managed to look pathetic, annoyed and annoying all at the same time.
"Of course," he said. "As I was just explaining, even the best-designed cybersec system still needs someone who understands how it works. As the robustness of the system increases, that someone becomes the most attractive way of bypassing it entirely. That is where physical security comes in — which is to say, the part you are responsible for, not I. The branch of security that's meant to prevent people like me being whacked over the head for a handful of access codes."
He paused, and added nearly as an aside, "Of course, I was oversimplifying just now. It is possible to design a security system that, upon completion, emerges as incomprehensible even to the person who designed it. But that tends to be very difficult to debug or update as time goes on, so it's not a very practical choice and not something clients usually demand."
"Yeah, yeah. Skip the lecture. What happened to you?"
"D.A.R.T. gun and some kind of additional sedative," Ramirez chipped in, mercifully cutting the egghead's answer short. "We're still waiting on the lab results. Whatever it is, it's homebrewed."
"Right. So, the access codes?" he asked, turning back towards the sorry-looking figure hunched over in the chair.
"I was speculating," Xu continued. "Based on the mental disorientation — although that could be just from the sedative, I suppose — and the ease with which they navigated my system, I assume they were able to extract the override access codes from me. I suppose I should be thankful the days of fingerprint scanners are behind us."
"So far all I'm hearing is an awful lot of words about how it's not your fault."
The professor's eyes took on a stubborn glint. "I'm sure you'll peruse the security data and determine to your satisfaction if I'm in breach of contract. I hardly need to remind you, but it was your call for me to be present on-site today, not mine."
Decker decided once again that he didn't like this guy. And he was just a tad more chatty than your average mind-scrambled sucker would be, something he'd normally be suspicious about. But Decker had seen him at his baseline, so all bets were off.
"Sure," he said thoughtfully. "Could be they brain-scanned you, We've had a few cases like that." Which would make it his fault, wouldn't it, for taking the guy who'd beefed up their network security and then dangling him in front of the intruders on a goddamn string.
"Or maybe they got in another way," he kept talking. He turned to address his team now - those still up and running. "We keep looking. And you..." He turned to his sys admin - his actual sys admin, a perpetually nervous-looking guy in his late 30's. "The CCTV on floor six. Any clue what was up with that?"
"Nothing yet." The man glanced up from his laptop for the millisecond or so required by basic courtesy. "We know the feeds were doctored, since there's no trace of you and patrol team B searching the place. Footage's obviously looped. We don't know how many other cameras were affected."
"Got any light to shed on that?" Decker said, turning back to the contractor. He didn't quite mean for it to, but the way it came out was almost sarcastic — his interrogation room voice.
Tony Xu met his eyes steadily. (And why was he noticing that? What did it matter?) "I didn't notice anything untoward before I was knocked out," he said. "And I haven't had a chance to look into it since."
"Great. So much for your fancy schooling."
The man's eyes narrowed at that, but he kept a haughty silence, and Decker had bigger fish to fry.
"Sir," Ramirez said, "Some of the guests want to leave. The commotion has them worried."
Only some of them? Damn, they really were committed to partying...
"Make sure they all leave," Decker said. "Party's over, can't have them running about after a break-in. But search them first."
"For what? Nothing was stolen."
"We don't know that yet," Decker said, feeling the egghead's eyes on him. "But they'll have a gun, and possibly other tech. It's going to be a bitch of a job, figuring out how they got all the way in. The intruder using my keycard on floor six - could that have been spoofed? Done remotely to draw us out, and away from the real target?"
"Unlikely," the egghead volunteered. "The door security system is on a separate network, so it would be extremely difficult to—"
"Gotcha." Decker waved him into silence and turned to Ramirez.
"We'll look into that," Ramirez nodded. "Didn't have to be remote, if the girl had backup. One person swipes the card as a distraction, other one does the job. You said something about the real target?"
Decker brought up a CCTV feed of the lobby. A few of the guests were milling about, impatient. That was a lot of important people down on the ground floor, and for the better part of half an hour, he and the bulk of his team couldn't have been further from them.
"Tell the guests to check their possessions — help them out if you have to, they look pretty sloshed. And run a medscan on them, every single one. Just in case," he said. He would have already heard about it if someone had been shot or stabbed. But that didn't rule out less immediate methods of assassination, and there was still a chance to catch that before it was too late.
"They won't be happy about the delay. These things take time," Ramirez pointed out, then lowered his voice. "And neither will upper management. The medscan licenses are pricey. We're not supposed to use them this frivolously."
Frivolously . He actually said that goddamn word. Decker sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Everything was too fucking pricey , until a VIP dropped dead on his watch and suddenly everyone was asking why he hadn't done any of the myriad pricey things that could have saved him.
Ramirez saw his expression and straightened. "I'll see to it," he said. His tone conveyed quite clearly that he wasn't on the hook for the additional expenses, so really, on your head be it, Decker.
"What do you want to do with him?" Ramirez said, jerking his head at the security contractor.
He probably meant something like "Do you want us to run any more medscans on him or get him home", or "Should we call the insurance company in case the thing he got spiked with was nastier than we thought", but Decker stopped, overcome with a Feeling.
Something about this wasn't right. Thinking over the details of the break-in, he could just about spot a loose thread here and there. The kind of loose thread which, in the old days, he would have pulled on to unravel the whole damn yarn, chased it down like a dog until he found every last buried bone. And so on and so forth. Cue more colourful metaphors.
Something didn't add up. First step in a case like this would be to take a fine-toothed comb through every guard and secretary and janitor with access, make sure it wasn't an inside job — and that meant a much closer look at the cybersec guy, just to start with. He was a private contractor — no ties to anyone here, which meant no loyalty.
Decker stood there, rifling in his pockets, and threw the egghead another glance. Sure, he looked pathetic, but the man was also watching him with just the wrong amount of attention for someone who knew he'd been jumped, and how that was the long and short of it. He wanted to know if Decker bought the story — like there was anything to buy — had been a little too eager to offer up those explanations to begin with. And yeah, technically that was his job, but...
The best liars were the ones who could live the lie — embody an alternate version of themselves so completely and casually convinced their lie was the truth that it wouldn't even occur to them to question it.
This guy wasn't that good. Not yet, anyway.
And to be fair, it was subtle. There could be a dozen other reasons for him to be paying attention to Decker — wondering when he'd be let free to go home, for one. It could just be his imagination.
His gut told him it wasn't.
His gut told him that if he started pulling on that thread, he'd find no shortage of other things to pluck at. And didn't the crown upstairs have a holoreplica of it somewhere? He should probably check on that. Make sure they still had the real deal.
Should probably do that, right now. Make a few calls, find out who he was even allowed to disclose that shit to. There was just one problem.
Decker stood in the garish light of the makeshift infirmary and lit a cigarette. It was an FTM brand, the quality kind. The good ol' US of A may no longer exist, but even in death, they refused to give up the cultural monopoly they'd clawed out in life through the smiles and sacrifice of countless charismatic Marlboro Men.
He was trying to remember a single reason for him to give a shit.
And coming up short.
Spend the next four, five hours raking through suspects — well into a sleepless night. Chasing down leads, haranguing grumpy people through overseas calls. Track down whoever the fuck he needed to talk to discuss the replica that was need-to-know only. And all for what? Justice for some fat cat sitting on his stolen gold? A couple of people shipped off to jail or deprogamming centers or who the fuck knows where, or maybe just offered a job so they could do bigger, nastier crimes, but this time on corporate payroll. He'd seen it all before, one way or another. What was the fucking point?
He was so tired of it all.
Why was he still here? The break-in was done. He'd missed them, they weren't coming back for seconds, best he could hope for was that the composite sketch from Sven's optical feed was clear enough to get an ID, and then the enforcement agencies would take it from there. He'd done his job as best he could. Sticking around to do grunt work was for people lower on the food chain, and with more shits to give.
"Fuck it," he muttered. From Ramirez's face, he might have muttered it a bit too loudly. He couldn't bring himself to care.
"Sir?"
"I said fuck it," Decker said to Ramirez, with an air of finality. "Alright. Here it is. Wait until his bloodwork comes back, then send him home or to a hospital. Process the guests like I said, pull all the cybersec logs. Do the write-up, send me a copy when you're through. We're done here."
There was a bar stool nearby with his name on it, and he was going to find it. If he was going to have a miserable, sleepless night of self-loathing only to wake up at five PM and feel like shit over his life choices, it was going to be on his own terms, godammit.
The man on the rooftop sized the thief up and down. Mostly down. The Resource Wars had petered out, but he could swear criminals still got younger every year.
She was just a slip of a thing, intimidated but trying not to show it. She obviously thought he was the kind of person it was a bad idea to get involved with, and was doing so against her better judgement.
She was right, of course. Staying on this track would get her killed — or worse, indebted to the corps.
But not today.
"Pleasure doing business with you," he said.
The girl took her cash and disappeared, and he resumed his vigil.
Whether his hunch about the thief's level of opportunism had been correct or not, the owner was likely already on his way here on a private jet, come running to check on his precious horde in person. That was what he had done after last year's incursion, and that was surely what he would do this time. It would be a few hours yet before his arrival, but he could wait.
The party-goers were filing out; the street in front of the Congress Center would soon be empty. Two limousines were currently parked on the curb. There were twenty feet of pavement between them and the double doors — empty, grey, and devoid of cover. More than enough.
Raymond Malik unzipped his duffel bag and began assembling his rifle.
Two birds, one stone.
Budapest
2074
"So let me get this straight — you were in cahoots."
"I was young'n foolish," Banks smiled. "Trusted some people I shouldn't've."
"I'm very grateful that you did," Xu said smoothly. "Even if it did..." he broke off, obviously having second thoughts about speaking up. "Well. I suppose everything happens for a reason, and all that."
"You mean it eventually got ya arrested and jailed?"
"How did you—"
"I looked ya up. Was in the area a couple years later and felt like collaborating."
"I"m touched. Truly."
"Knew you were up to no good. Knew it my gut," Decker muttered, but more to himself, so he didn't expect it when Banks perked up and turned her eyes back on him.
"If ya knew, why didn't ya do something? Ya were still Chief of Security, weren'tcha?" she asked.
Decker shrugged. "You'll understand when you're older," he said, because explaining existential despair to a 29-year-old was not on his bucket list right now.
Then again, he'd been her age when he got fired, hadn't he? And didn't that just make him feel old.
Valdes was watching him with an expression he didn't like the look of, because it usually came attached to some sentiment he had no clue how to handle. He'd run out of ways to explain to her that he was not a good guy, and never had been. It had yet to stick.
One of these days, he'd tell her about Durmaz. And countless like him. She'd change her tune, alright.
His gut told him she already knew.