protocol_01.02: echo request
Elsa had gotten all intense after Anna told her about the lead on Fisk and Schwartzwald. Anna had spent at least an hour scanning in all the papers she'd absconded with from Hans' hotel room, as well as hooking up his electronic devices to network jacks in her apartment. Elsa, unsurprisingly, dove into all the data and hasn't really surfaced yet.
Which leaves Anna up to her own devices. Which, at the moment, meant she was hanging around T's bar and watching the crowd. T has been down in the undercity for a very long time, probably born down here. She'd set up this place through grit and hard work, and everyone who spent any amount of time here knew it. Sanctuary was the blacksider bar in this sector, and considered by many to be the best in the undercity. It wasn't just the food or drink, even though T's was top-notch, even better than some of the restaurants Anna had visited with her parents. No, the fact of the matter is that almost whatever it was you needed, you could find it at Sanctuary. Jobs, contracts, information, black market merchants, you name it. Only rules were no drugs, no prostitution, no fighting, and above all, T's word was law.
It really only took one idiot once ever to nail it home that T really wasn't kidding when she said that.
Anna had arrived Sanctuary within the first few days of her fall into the undercity. She had been incredibly lucky Elsa had found it, because T had taken one look at the dirty, scared, and tired teenager on her doorstep and that was pretty much it. She owed the older woman a lot, both she and Elsa did.
"Arc, if you are just going to sit there wasting time, you can work." T thrusts a mop and bucket into her hands. Anna sighs. Which is why T is probably one of the only people in the world who can get away with ordering a blacksider like her around like a wayward child.
"Aw, come on, T. I was working last night," she whines a little. "If I order a drink, will you let me off the hook?"
T takes the mop and bucket back and sets them in a corner. "Strictly speaking, I'm not supposed to serve you those."
"Since when has that ever stopped you?" Anna grins brightly.
The older woman shakes a finger at her. "I swear to god, Arc, you are going to be the death of me." She's smiling, though, teeth bright against dark skin, eyes warm. "That smart mouth of yours is going to get you into trouble one of these days."
"That's pretty much every day."
"Least you're honest." T shakes her head fondly. "Now, I'm assuming it went well last night?"
Anna nods. "Yeah, thanks for the tip. Rime wasn't too pleased about the timing, but I managed. Got the info we needed. She's puzzling over god knows what with it now."
"Right. Of course she is. You ever gonna drag that skiz friend of yours out to meet us?"
The tone is teasing, but Anna still frowns. "She's not a skiz."
T levels her a flat look. She turns slightly to a Chinese woman lounging further down the bar. "Hey Doc, need a medical opinion over here?" The woman raises an eyebrow. "What do you call someone who's apparently jacked into the Net all the time, all hours of the day, and never once in three years has shown her face to daylight?"
"Do you really need an answer to that?" Doc drawls.
Anna scowls and bites her lip. "Rime's not a skiz. I mean, yeah, she always seems to be online, but she doesn't have the other signs." She shakes her head. "You know, the lack of focus, the disorientation, the sociopathic tendencies and all that. You know how weird it is talking to a skiz even online. Rime's not like that. At all."
Doc looks thoughtful. "She's got a point there."
"I hope you know I can hear you all." Elsa's voice is dry as a desert in Anna's ear. Anna slaps a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing, even though it's useless.
"She can hear us, can't she?" T shakes her head. "Rime, it's only polite to talk to the rest of us."
"But it's more amusing this way." Now Elsa's voice is coming from a small speaker underneath the bar, probably attached to one of the registers.
"I don't even want to know how you got access to that machine."
"You know I would never dream of messing with your accounts, T." She sounds a little hurt. T's expression softens.
"Of course, Rime. I was only teasing." She clears her throat. "Arc was saying she got you some decent intel?"
"Yes. Still working on it. On an entirely unrelated note, Prince is a piece of work."
Doc's eyebrows raise up to her hairline. "You got dirt on Prince? I'd love to see that asshole put away."
Now that's something you don't hear from Doc every day. Anna leans on the bar, moving in closer. "Oh?"
She shakes her head. "Some of the people who've come to me after he'd gotten his claws into them...trust me, detox and trauma is never a pretty combination. Even less when you're putting kids back together."
Anna goes white at the thought. "I should have shot him anyway," she growls.
"And then we would have had three more take his place." Elsa sounds calm, calmer than Anna knows she probably is. Sometimes, she envies her sister's ability to always sound exactly as she wants. "Blackmail was the way to go."
"Still should have shot him a little," Anna grumbles.
"Next time, I promise maybe you can shoot him, if it makes you feel better. Can you let it go now?" Elsa says into her earphone, sarcasm dripping from every word. Anna shakes her head in exasperation. Dork.
"How long is it going to take you?" T asks, dragging the conversation back around.
"A while," Elsa admits. "There's a lot and even more connections to chase down." Anna catches Doc wincing in sympathy. Intel might be invaluable, but no one here wanted to be the one sifting through it. Anna admits that her career as a blacksider wouldn't be nearly as lucrative if she didn't have Elsa willing and able to do a lot of the deskwork.
"I thought as much." T crosses her arms and leans her hip against the bar. "Which is why I've got a job for you to do in the mean time."
Anna bolts up fast enough that she nearly falls off the stool. "What?"
T raises an eyebrow. "I'm not letting you just loiter around my bar while Rime does all the work." Before Anna can squawk in protest at this completely unfair assessment, she continues. "Unless you want to spend that time mopping, Arc."
Elsa is at least kind enough to not snicker aloud. Doc is not and chuckles at Anna's face. Anna proves that she is an equally mature adult and sticks her tongue out at the woman before responding. "No, no. Job is fine. Please not the mop."
"Yeah, that's not surprising." T reaches into her apron and pulls out a datastick she tosses to Anna. "It's a two-person job, though."
"Okay, so...what? There's me and there's Rime. Two people, no problem."
T shakes her head. "No, I mean two physical people. You're going to need another person. No offense, Rime."
"None taken."
Anna pulls a face. Working with other people is always a crapshoot. Some of them object to working with a teenager. Others are sexist jerks. But the absolute worst are the people who think Rime didn't exist. That Anna just works alone because that's all they saw. She hates it when people dismiss Elsa.
The worst part is that Elsa just lets it go. She'd not bother joining in on the shared comm channel, and just let Anna take all the credit. She's fine with being ignored, unnoticed. That she never gets acknowledgement for all the work she does, how much Arc's reputation as a blacksider depends on Rime's abilities. As if it's nothing new, nothing to make a fuss about. Anna doesn't like what that says about how her sister had been living.
"Great. Where am I supposed to get someone?"
T raises an eyebrow and gestures expansively at the room. "You are in a blacksider bar. The world, it is your oyster."
Anna rolls her eyes.
"Take Adze, if you want a rec," says Doc. Anna spins to look at her, but can't decipher her expression. "He's good people. Been working with me in the clinic on his off-time. Good enough shot, and he's got steady hands and steadier nerves."
Doc doesn't give out praise like that lightly. "How would he react to working with Rime and me?"
"He should be fine with it." Doc grins quickly, sharp as scalpels. "And if he isn't, let me know."
Anna nods slowly. "All right. If you say he's good, that's good enough for me."
"I'll call him over." With that, she pulls out a phone.
"The stick should have all the details. I'm point-of-contact for the client, standard arrangement, so just report back to me when its done." T's words are rote, Anna's so used to them, but listening to them as she watches the woman wipe down the bar settles something inside her. It happens every time, like T's words are a cloak of professionalism Anna wraps around herself.
"You okay with running mission control while data trawling?" she asks subvocally. Elsa had said there was a lot, and even after all this time, she doesn't know where her sister's limits are.
"Always. Don't worry about it." The response is soft in her ear, just for her. She can't help herself from worrying, at times. She doesn't understand half the stuff Elsa does, but she does know that her sister does it better than most people. She can't help but think about T's comment about being a skiz. It's not possible, because Elsa's too put together for that, way too focused on things. But as far as she knows, she's still been doing nothing but data analysis since last night. She has to sleep sometime, right?
There's really no time to worry about that now, though. If Elsa says she's fine, then Anna's just going to have to trust her.
"Do you have an extra comm set? I'm probably not going to have a chance to run back and get a spare," Anna asks. T nods, pulls something else out from under the bar, and tosses it to her. Anna's worked behind that bar. She still has no idea where T keeps half this stuff. "Awesome." She stuffs the comm in a pocket. Elsa will be able to key it to a secure channel when they need it. Whether or not Elsa will actually use it to talk to this Adze is up in the air. Anna's never really sure why she chooses what she does.
It's the heavy tread of workboots on Sanctuary's wood floor that breaks her train of thought, not the deep voice that follows it.
"Hey Doc. Said you had a job for me?"
Anna spins around on the stool and stares at her prospective new partner. He's big: tall and broad shouldered and extremely well-muscled beneath his thin dark shirt and tac vest. A mess of blond hair sticks out from under the black-knit cap on his head. She can see at two pistols in shoulder-holsters underneath the vest and the outline of at least two knives on his pants. Good, at least she doesn't have to worry about arming him. An exceedingly fluffy black-and-tan dog sits on its haunches by his side, tongue lolling.
Well then.
"I did. Adze, meet Arc and Rime. Arc and Rime, this is Adze. The dog is Sven."
Adze blinks. "Okay."
"Arc here has the info," says T as she wipes her hands on a towel. "You're free to use one of the back rooms." She makes shooing motions.
"Well, you heard her. Let's go." With that, Anna hops of the stool and strolls over to the back of the bar. The heavy footfalls tell her that Adze has at least decided to follow her. She'd be worried about showing her back to a stranger, but one, he's one of Doc's, and two, she's in Sanctuary. No one would be dumb enough to touch her under T's roof.
Which is why T gave her the use of one of her back rooms. The set-up here is pretty sweet, with soundproof and mostly-bug-proof walls and doors, a secure line to the Net, and a large holodeck table in the middle of the room. "Mostly" bug-proof, because Anna knows for a fact that Elsa's managed to worm into one at least once. Considering it ended up that the people she spied on were plotting on getting revenge on Anna for a job of theirs that went south, T had more words to say to them than about Rime's circumvention of her security.
She throws herself into a nearby chair as Adze closes the door behind Sven, watching the two carefully. "Right. So, I'm Arc."
"So I heard. Nice to meet you," he drawls as he sits down across from her. The dog sits next to him, eyes trained on her.
Anna forces herself to remain in a fake-casual pose. She hates this next bit, but it's better to get it out of the way first. Then she can figure out how well this "partnership" is going to work. "Before we get to anything else, let's just agree on payment split first. That way, there are no surprises."
Adze blinks. "I figured it would be a standard three-way split."
"You...you're all right with that?"
He looks baffled. "Why wouldn't I be? There are two of you, right? That's what Doc said."
"It's just, well, some people have...issues with Rime."
"Well, why would I? I assume they're going to show up soon, or is it just me and you doing this?" he says as he absently scratches the top of Sven's head.
"Give him the extra comm, so we can do this properly."
"You sure about that?" Anna asks subvocally.
"Well, this way, it at least looks like I'm polite, instead of breaking the encryption on his secure phone." A pause. "Also, remind me to upgrade that algorithm for him and Doc, it's a piece of junk."
Anna nearly chokes holding back a snicker at Elsa's utterly offended tone. "Here," she manages, slightly breathless, handing over the comm. "This will make things easier."
Adze looks at it a little dubiously, but puts it on anyway.
"Hello Adze. This is Rime."
"Okay," he says slowly. "I'm guessing that means you're not showing up."
"No, not really. I...generally work in the background on these jobs." Another pause. "Arc, if you would put the datastick in, that would be helpful."
Anna rolls her eyes and plugs the datastick she got into the holodeck.
"Don't you need the network ID to see what we're looking at?"
"No." "No."
Anna smirks. Adze blinks again. Yeah, it's been awhile since she and Elsa pulled this particular dynamic off. She's missed it. He crosses his arms and leans back in his chair, eyeing her carefully. Anna matches him stare-for-stare until Elsa breaks the silence.
"Right, okay. So this is what we got." A modestly-sized translucent warehouse appears on the holodeck. "Warehouse in the Docks, owned by Instrex, which is apparently a minor division of Nestor. Who knew? Anyway, there's a package in container RA43-56. Client wants it retrieved before it goes on the boat tomorrow." A shipping container within the warehouse starts flashing green.
"So, standard smash-and-grab?" Anna asks, although she figures there has to be more to it. T wouldn't have said it was a two-physical-person job if it was this easy.
"You wish." A series of red dots appear on the holo. "Apparently, our client pissed off the Green Street Boys." Anna groans. "Through...oh that was stupid. From what I just dug up, he welched out on a deal with Ixion. Guess who wants the package to get on that boat."
"Are you serious?" Anna falls back against the chair and flops a hand over her face. "Dammit T..."
"Did you just figure all that out?" Adze is looking at the holo in disbelief. "That fast?"
"Rime's good."
"Yeah, I got that. But there's 'good', and then there's 'insanely good'." He looks impressed. "I'm going to guess that most of that wasn't on the stick."
"No. T must have wheedled out enough intel to guess this needed more than one active blacksider." Anna imagines her sister grumbling under her breath, she sounds so offended. "It's a good thing the money on this job is high enough, because the intel on the stick is not." The holo of the warehouse rotates a bit and the red dots start flashing. "These are the most-likely places Green Street will put their people."
Adze gets up and peers at the holo. "Makes sense. They get coverage of all the major sightlines if they put people in half of these." He rubs a palm on his face. "This is going to suck."
"Adze, what's your specialty?"
He looks up at Anna. "Long- and medium-range. If we can afford to swing by Doc's, I can grab my rifle. What about you?"
"Medium-range and close-quarters." Adze raises an eyebrow. "I'm serious!"
He holds up his hands in mock surrender. "I'm not doubting you! I think doubting either of you two would be hazardous to my health at this point."
Anna huffs and turns back to the holo. She bites her lip. Their specialties work could work really well together, especially with Elsa acting as mission control. It's about the only thing that gives her faith that they can pull this off. Maybe... "Rime, what are my possible entrances?"
"Thought you'd ask that." Certain parts of the warehouse flash blue. The only one that doesn't suck in at least ten different ways is on the roof.
"Oh goddammit, are you serious? The roof?" It's not that she can't climb, she just hates it. Especially since she'll have to free climb this one, or do stupid parkour tricks to building hop, but that would likely make her a target.
Adze checks that particular spot. "It's outside their sightlines. What's the entrance?"
"Vent shaft."
"I really, really hate you sometimes."
"What about me?"
"Not as familiar with your abilities, so give me a second." There's a long pause. "Based on what you said, it might be best if you act as long-range support." Another area of the roof flashes yellow. "There should be a skylight here, with decent cover from the HVAC system. You have a silencer for that rifle?"
"Yeah."
"If we can grab a rigging kit and tie you in, you can take out pretty much anyone on both levels, and you could rappel down if Arc gets in trouble. If you're up for it."
He looks thoughtful. "Yeah, I think that could work." He tilts his head towards the dog, who's now lying on the floor with his head on his paws. "What about Sven?"
"Lookout, if he can do it? You're going to be separated, but he might notice something I can't from the security cameras."
Adze kneels down and rubs Sven behind the ears. Anna can't help but smile. "Yeah, he can do that." He looks up. "You going to run control for us, Rime?"
"And interference if I have to. This channel is secure, so I'll be on-comm the entire time."
He nods slowly and stands up. "I think we can do this." His lips twitch into the beginnings of a smile as he holds out his hand. "You up for it?"
This? This might actually work out. Anna grins. "I was born ready."