As they strode into the market, Aswon lowered his voice and called out to the group
"So, do you think they're going to do this inside the market or outside?"
"I'm keeping a watch on the outside," answered Marius over the radio. "But I suspect it will be much easier to do the swap on the inside."
"I agree. There's a lot more cover in here, and possibly witnesses to any double cross they might try and organise. If I was doing a handoff of a data disk, it would be in here, not out in the parking area." Kai looked around at the stalls, laid out on his left and right sides, and the towering monument that rose up into the dark sky ahead of him. "Let's go that way first," he waved to the right and the row of stalls that curved gently around in an arc.
"Maybe they might try and hire or use one of those marquees at the back we saw being put up? Might be places where they have meetings."
"Good point Tads, yes, they might."
"So boss, how about some spending money, then. We are at a market after all?" Aswon quirked an eyebrow at Kai.
"Absolutely not. Remember, you're all my slaves or loyal henchmen. Or henchwoman. So no spending money for you. But if you're well behaved, your superb leader may get some gifts for you so you can recognise my greatness….stop sniggering!"
"As you wish. On a more serious note, I would say it's worth checking for guns and weapons, not so much on the cyber-technology side. Maybe keep an eye out for some of those new Saviour medkits that are starting to hit the markets properly… but we need to be careful on the quality."
"Very well. And we definitely want to avoid the slavers – no reason to go and see those." Kai turned as Anahita gave a discreet cough.
"Actually, I'd suggest at least a casual walk past. Most people do, whether it be to gawk, be glad you're not them, or to wonder what kind of people deal in that trade. It might look odd if you don't have at least a glance, and you're trying to fit in, right?"
"Well, all the same I think I'll not look too closely. I don't know about you, but if I saw any other of my tribe here – I'm not leaving them enslaved." Tads had that stubborn tone to her voice that they'd come to recognise. Generally she'd say her piece and then move on, happy to be over-ruled or informed about some part of the smuggler business or sixth-world that she had no idea about. But, when she found something she cared about, getting her to change her mind was like arguing with a mountain.
"Perhaps when we come to the slavers, if you stand behind Mr. Hunter here, or someone else, so you don't have to see? Otherwise, I would suggest that we do at least one tour of the market so you can look at all the stalls – and perhaps as importantly all of the stalls will see you walking around with me. Hopefully they'll not treat you like tourists to be fleeced completely."
"I don't think we want to be fleeced at all, thank you very much," murmured Kai.
"Well, we don't get everything we want, do we, Kai – otherwise we'd have gotten away with that Picasso and we'd be much richer than we are now." There was a look between the two, and a tight-lipped smile, reminding the others that there was some history between Anahita and Kai from before the team had formed. Their gentle ambling had bought them in range of the first stall though, a couple of rough planks laid over some sawhorses to form a basic bench, and then the various wares displayed on a set of racks at an angle. These were splayed out to either side of the back doors for a fairly generic-looking box van, crammed with plastic boxes and racks of equipment. There was a slightly faded sign over the top of the van, held on with thin plastic streamers proclaiming it 'Ogluk's lucky rocket store'.
"Heya Ogluk, how you doing?"
"'Nita! Not too bad. New crew?"
"Some friends of mine, just introducing them round the market."
"Well, good to meetcha folks." Ogluk appeared to be in his early twenties, a sturdily built ork with fairly subtle tusks and skin colouring, wearing a band t-shirt and tattered armour jacket along with a pair of jeans that had seen better days. He spotted Hunter eyeing up the selection of RPGs that hung on the pegboard display. "See anything you fancy? Ogluk sells good stock, guaranteed explosions – or your money back!"
"Those standard RPG-7s you have there?"
"No – they're decent RPG-7s. Out of the Nova-2 facility up in the Federation. Not the cheap Chinese or Indian knock-offs. You want a few?"
"Thanks, but no – I was just curious. I am looking for some grenades maybe, in the forty-mil range. To go in an Ares Antioch series grenade launcher." Ogluck gave a low-pitched whistle, rocking back on his heels and giving Hunter a more serious look.
"That's a nice piece of kit." He glanced over at Anahita who gave a nod and a smile. Satisfied with her recommendation, he grabbed a box off a shelf in the van and bought it over to the rough bench, flipping the lid open to reveal a foam inner with cutouts for several rows of grenades. "These are pretty good. Improved formula fast burn explosive, generates about six percent more blast than the old series two grenades. They managed to get the case slightly thinner as well – cuts down on the fragments, but the ones it does have move faster and have better penetration. These are for a different manufacturer – but if you have time to get them on the bench, you just need to cut off this plastic tab here, and here, and they fit into the Antioch just nice." Ogluk had pulled a grenade out of the packaging and demonstrated the two cuts that needed to be made, before carefully replacing the grenade in the foam slot and resealing the case."
"They're excellent stock, really good for clearing out infantry, room clearance or laying down suppressive fire, and really mulch the enemy if you've got a good eye."
"Ok, interesting." Hunter glanced over to Kai who was watching the exchange with a faint smile on his face. "I think we need to check out the other stalls as well, but I think we might be back for those."
"Ok, but if another buyer comes along… Ogluck gotta sell! Here, try this for balance though!" He replaced the case of grenades in the van, but took down one of the RPG-7 launchers and tossed it to Hunter, and then as the large ork checked the weight and finish, started to describe the features and the clear advantages to buying from the original designer. Kai listened in, willing to spend a few minutes assessing the guy's patter and knowledge, getting a feeling for how good his sales pitch was. He turned out to be an ok salesman, but knowledgeable about his stock – which seemed like a reasonable mix as far as Kai was concerned.
They wandered over to the next stall, having a good look around the place and keeping a subtle eye on the half dozen other people who were in the market – an easy task while it was this quiet. They didn't spot anyone giving them more than a quick look over, but as they approached the next stall, Aswon saw the guy looking a little odd. He took a deep breath and did his little ritual – blink, blink, look up, stare. The muscles around his eye focussed his sight, deforming his eyeball and bringing up a set of rods and cones that didn't normally get any use in the Mark One human eyeball. But, with his superb body control, he could change the shape of his eye somewhat and produce a heat map instead of the light hitting the more normal rods and cones to be interpreted by the brain as shapes and colours.
The guy flared – he was running more than a little hot, it was like he had a small turbo running in his body. His core temperature seemed to be a good few degrees warmer than normal, and the glow spread all through his torso and into all four limbs. His neck was flaring off heat, and Aswon relaxed his muscles back to 'normal' to get a more mundane view of him to be sure there wasn't a heat haze around him. He turned around to look back towards the entrance, and pointed towards the stalls on the other side of the space, as if confused, before keying up his comms system.
"This guy is running hot – I think he has a bioengineered super-thyroid gland. Seen a few guys running one in a company I worked for. Really pumps the physique up, but makes you hotter than an oven and glow like anything on thermal scans."
Marius heard the transmission just as clearly as everyone else as he monitored the drone traffic and electronic system, but picked up a little burst of interference at the end of the transmission. Checking over his displays, he re-ran the last few seconds, studying the readouts intently.
"Everyone, we just had a collision. Another frequency hopping radio jumped on our channel and was starting to transmit, right at the end of what Aswon said. They picked up our traffic though, and hopped again. Just checking now…. Yeah, there's a pretty reasonable mesh of transmissions going on there, hopping around all over the place. Encrypted too, just like ours. I'd put good money on the market organisers having a comms net up. We may want to go radio-dark unless it's important." There was another double click of acknowledgement, and the frequency went quiet, so Marius returned to monitoring his drone, being sure to keep it clear of the market air-space.
The rest of the team approached the next stall, which looked a little more professional than Ogluk's rough planks – this guy had proper folding tables and some kind of cloth over it, and a few cheap tablets chained to the bench displaying photo montages and video clips. The stallholder introduced himself as 'Mr. Rand' and laid out his wares – or rather the virtual description of them.
Mr. Rand dealt in Bioware and Nanoware, it seemed, and had a variety of encapsulated treatments or medical supplies that were ready to sell – you just needed to find a decent surgeon to get them implanted. A lot of the supplies seemed to be fairly cosmetic – things that would change your hair colouring or alter the skin pigment, or treatments to regenerate the enamel on the teeth and restore a smile. None of the magically active members of the team were interested in putting anything artificial in their bodies, no matter how 'light' a touch it was – doing so would hamper their ability to channel their magical power. Hunter didn't seem too keen either, saying he was 'pretty full already' – a common enough issue with implanted hardware.
The meta-human body seemed to have a limit to how much it could be replaced with artificial replacements or enhancements, after which it lost cohesion or suffered a series of ailments that often had the effect of driving the victim into a chronic state of disassociation, listlessness and eventually death. Mr Rand did reveal that he had some more combat-orientated implants though – specialised treatments that reduced the feelings of pain associated with wounds, allowing the owner to fight on with more effectiveness.
They made a note of his details, introduced themselves and then made polite excuses and wandered on to the next stall down. This space didn't have a front desk or stall, instead a whole bunch of folding chairs were laid out in a semi-circle, with the stall owner placed in the middle. Whatever he was selling, it didn't look to be a physical thing.
The man was in his early thirties, and looked to be a Native American from the former US – though they had no idea what tribe or culture he was from. The team mostly sat at his waved invitation, with Shimazu standing at the end and looking out around the crowd, observing for trouble.
"Hello. The name's Joe – though many folk call me Indian Joe. And no, it doesn't bother me."
"Hi there. I'm Kai, and this is my crew. We're new in the area, but we've done a bunch of work up north. Anahita recommended we come to the market and meet some new people."
"Always good to learn new things, meet new people. That's where someone like me can help of course. I barter information, knowledge, maps and sources, passcodes and routes, all kinds of things that will help you do your job."
"Ahh, I see…information brokerage. Very useful. Well – perhaps we have something of use to barter with. How would you like the full run down and capabilities of a new smuggler stop in the local area? Would that be worth your while?"
"Hmm, ok. I'm interested. Show me what you have, and I'll pay you in kind?"
"Well, ok. Of course, I'm operating on faith here, but I've never heard anything bad about you, so a little trust has to start somewhere." Kai pulled out the map, and pinpointed the location of Rashid's base, and then gave a sales pitch for the location, upselling their hospitality, and slightly over-selling their base facilities and expertise – but not enough that it should cause a major issue. Joe listened carefully, making some notes along the way and nodding, asking a few questions and amplifying on some facts.
"Of course, I'm happy to give you an exclusive on this – so we won't mention this to any other brokers or fixers for a few weeks, to let you get some mileage out of it…"
When Kai had finished speaking, Joe finished his notes and then gave him a broad smile.
"Nice, useful stuff. I think that's worth some info for you for when you stretch your legs." He reached over to a low side table and snagged an optical chip, then inserted it into the chip-writer that was on the floor under his chair. A few taps on the keypad and they hear the hardware spin up and chatter away for a few moments as the laser started to encode information onto the chip. Two minutes later the cooking process was done, and the chip ejected. Joe passed it over by the edges, and watched as Kai handed it off in turn to Hunter to slide into his reader.
"Well, a pleasure doing business with you, Kai. My details are on the chip; feel free to keep in touch."
"And the same to you. See you around." The team stood, handshakes were exchanged and they headed over to the next stall. As soon as their back was turned and they had gone a metre or two, Kai quietly asked Hunter what they had.
"Looks like a map of smuggler routes and stops in and over the UCAS, CAS and NAN territories. Starting in Seattle, routes over the Salish and Sioux lands, back to the UCAS border towns, then branches off. Got names on em like 'Big Easy' and 'Long Weekend'. Also details on some bases in the wilds, and a couple of notes on border security. Useful – if we ever go to North America."
"Well, good to have made a contact, if nothing else, and our information didn't cost us anything. And we're still helping Rashid."
Back in the tilt wing, Marius had been watching vehicles arrive and be directed to the various parking areas and spots. There were a mix of ground vehicles – cars, vans, a few bikes or trikes, along with a smaller number of aircraft – small choppers in the main part. He'd also seen the same vehicle turn up three times now, disgorge a handful of people, and then leave again, only to return a few minutes later. He figured it might be doing shuttle runs from a staging point – rail, airport or subway somewhere.
A vehicle drew his attention, and he started to view the drone footage, running a few minutes behind current events to catch up. It was a mid-sized panel van, a battered white, and very generic. It parked up just like all the other vehicles, and he saw three women get out from the front, and then move around to the rear cargo door, opening it up with a swipe card. Then he saw the activity that had drawn his attention – as they pulled out a string of five scrawny looking women chained together in a line by their neck. Two more women emerged from the van, jumping down to the ground and checked all the connections on the chains, before the five women and four apparent slaves started to march towards the entrance.
He kept half an eye on them and returned to his vigil, trying not to think about their fate. It wasn't like they could save everyone, and there was always a price for hanging around in the seedy underbelly of the world. He just didn't want to see it paraded in front of him. He wondered about calling it in, but decided the team didn't need the distraction.
Little did he know that the team had actually just arrived at the next stall, discovering that it was one of the slavers. Their stall was a more upmarket affair, a number of cubes stacked up on some blocks, displaying a potential purchase in each one. One of the cubes was empty, but the other eight all had an occupant. Six of them were female, a mix of Chinese, Japanese and Filipino by the looks of things, and the remaining two were male, one Chinese and one Filipino. All of them were draped suggestively over the soft cushions in their cubes, and were smiling at the team, running their hands over their own bodies or making beckoning gestures to whoever they could make eye contact with.
Shimazu gave each of them a good looking over, searching for any tattoos or clan markings, but couldn't see anything suggesting they were tied to his own clan or their allies – though two of them looked to have a Triad marking on their wrist. Much like Tads, he was glad he hadn't spotted anyone he recognised or felt allegiance with, or he wasn't sure he could have just walked away from the scene.
The two Japanese men operating the stall spoke to Kai for a few minutes, pitching their slaves to him and describing them as well trained, biddable and great purchases. Kai listened, but feigned disinterest, and made a few mild comments about the stock, indicating that he didn't really find them that appealing, before moving on as quickly as prudence allowed.
"Step right UP!, STEP, right up! That's it sir, and a good evening to you! Welcome to my little emporium! Isn't it nice to look at some stock that doesn't look back at you – well, all apart from the Freedom CX cyber-eyes of course!" He gave a belly laugh that was probably supposed to sound hearty, but came across as a little forced and over the top. The team were happy to be away from the slavers though, so they gathered around and checked out his stall.
'The Doc' seemed to have a couple of white cabinets set out for his wares, a series of gaudy boxes covered with brightly smiling people and a mass of text, all somehow proclaiming that with the cyberware contained within, their lives had been transformed. The UCAS flag was prominently displayed on every box, and the mix of colours, fonts, styles and over the top smiling people made most of them shudder. As with the previous stall, none of the magical members of the team were even slightly interested in personal use, but Hunter gave the stand a quick look over and grabbed a list of parts – just in case. It seemed that the stall leaned more towards sense-ware; cybernetic replacements for eyes and ears, with all kinds of modifications possible, such as Ultraviolet scanners, sonar emitters or recorders that could link to memory or storage areas implanted into the body.
The gear was pretty expensive too – way above the normal cost on the black market, but as soon as they started to discuss price, the stall owner was very quick to discuss the nanite programmed interfaces and specially designed single-use custom processes that would customise the 'ware to that of the person being operated on, reducing the impact of the process.
Again, Hunter grabbed some details, before they decided to move on to the next stall in the row. They'd reached the bottom of the curve now, and were starting to bend back to the north, heading towards the marquee tents at the rear.
"Tads, can you have a good look around and see if anyone is watching us? See if you can sense their mood and such like?"
"Sure Kai – but it'd be good if Shimazu did that too. He's much better than me at reading people. In fact, if this is something you're going to want on a regular basis, then we should probably think about some training." Having said her piece she looked around the market, which was starting to fill up with people, though by no means was it 'busy' yet. There were about forty people here now, spread out amongst the stalls and still mostly concentrated on the ones near the entrance.
She did notice lots of stares and curious looks, but as she watched the crowd she realised that the team were being given a look over, but just once. It wasn't ongoing curiosity, more of a thorough look at the new people in town. In the majority, the people here were in ones and twos, the occasional three – so the team stood out a little too, being obviously all together.
"Looking good Kai – curious looks, nothing more. I can spot two magically active people, one physical adept and one hermetic mage. Neither are masking, and they look uninitiated – so probably not that powerful." Her voice trailed off as she saw the string of four slaves led in by the women, but they headed around the north side of the market, away from them.
They arrived at the next stall, which was laid out in a similar fashion to Ogluk's – just with better décor. Rather than rockets and grenades, this stall was selling a wide variety of submachine guns, machine pistols and pistols, laid out neatly on the racks with the guns balanced on their barrels and grips, resting on the boxes so they could be seen slightly easier.
The Japanese man minding the stall was middle-aged, perhaps on the far side of forty, but dressed in a smart business suit and was impeccably groomed. He greeted Anahita with a smile and then a small bow – more than a tip of the head but less than a bow from the waist, which she returned. When he turned to face the team though, emotion leeched from his face until he looked more like a mannequin.
"Good evening to you. I am Mr. Wei. May I be of assistance?"
"Good evening to you Mr. Wei" Kai responded in Mandarin, wondering if he'd get a response. "I was looking for something that had a bit of punch, yet be small and easy to move." Mr Wei didn't respond to being addressed in Mandarin Chinese, but turned towards the shelf and pulled down a machine pistol.
"Perhaps this might be to your taste? This is a TMP, from Steyr. A fine pistol capable of rapid fire. Ambidextrous safety switch and fire mode selector, with a long pistol grip that will allow two handed grip for extra control." He demonstrated the features as he spoke of them, pointing out the components of the pistol in polite, uninflected English.
"That does indeed seem like just what I'm after. What would the price be on a fine weapon like this?"
"I can sell this for one and a half thousand, with one magazine included." Kai looked at the gun and racked his brain – the price seemed ok, if anything perhaps a little under what it normally sold for. Perhaps it was hot, or a clone of some kind rather than original. Whatever, it looked like a reasonable deal, and he decided to build their cover a little.
"I'll take it, thank you." Mr Wei grabbed a box from the back of his vehicle, checked that it was the right type and then removed it to show Kai, demonstrating that it was a working weapon of the same type and not a box weighted down with rocks.
"May I help anyone else with a purchase?" Mr Wei glanced around, but the other team members politely declined, and they moved away from the stall. When they were a sufficient distance away, Shimazu spoke quietly.
"I don't think it was a racial response, when he went all blank – it felt more like a comfort thing with his relationship to us. He doesn't know us by reputation at all, so he just projected a completely neutral face, and then judged us on how we acted. Hopefully we should be ok though – we were all polite to him, made a purchase and didn't haggle or insult him."
"Ok, that seems fair enough – I guess we just have to be careful and try and establish good relations with these people, and start working on our rep. Let's move on…" Kai gestured to the next stall, and led the way, his new gun tucked under his arm. He did wonder for a moment just how this was supposed to work – after all, they didn't want anything bigger than a pistol bought in, yet he'd just purchased a machine pistol. What was to stop him loading it up and causing a scene? It didn't make much sense, but then it's not like he could call the manager over and argue about it really…
The next stall had several stacking shelf units guyed down and lashed together with bungee cord, stacked up with a horde of small boxes. About half the boxes were covered in eye catching graphics, logos, large text and callouts, while the other half were "white box" – plain packages with nothing but a small label and barcode present.
"Good evenink, welcome, welcome. Are you new to market? I not see you here before? Is no concern, just making welcome. You wish to see my wares?" He spoke in English, but with a strong Russian accent, and stepped to one side to show them his shelves more clearly. Unlike many of the other stalls, he also had a lot of stock displayed on his front bench, mostly the gaudy and brightly coloured boxes.
Once they could focus past the riot of colour, it appeared that this guy sold electronic equipment – a lot of devices that acted as encryption add-ons for radios, trid units or other electronic devices, along with various adapters, converters and kits that promised to remove manufacturer restrictions. The goods in the bright boxes looked to be aimed at the consumer market, and were more basic, while the white-box goods tended to be aimed more at the security market and included discreet cameras, audio pickups, burst transmitters, infra-red detectors and emitters and other basic security gear.
Hunter dropped into Russian, and said hello to the man, who immediately swapped into his native tongue and started to chat away quite happily, introducing himself as Viktor Pavel. As Hunter listened to him speak, he picked up on the particular word use and twang that marked Viktor as a Moscow native, and asked him where he was based. Hunter had a few of his contacts based in Moscow, one in the centre of the sprawling grey city, and one out to the north-east, but Viktor was based in Sector 11, well away from his normal stomping grounds.
After chatting for a few minutes, and giving the stock a look over, the team thanked Viktor and moved on, heading towards the next stall in the same fashion as they had previously – moving in towards the centre a little, and then huddling round for a chat as if discussing the stall they had just visited. It gave them a chance for a careful sweep of the area, and to assess the crowd. There were about another dozen people that had arrived in the time it had taken them to check out the last few stalls, and each of them it seemed was giving the group a good once over, before turning their attention elsewhere. Nobody seemed to be focussing on them specifically though.
Back in the chopper, Marius watched as a large lumbering van rocked its way over the ground, heading towards a parking spot relatively close to the entrance. From what Anahita had said, and their own experiences, that meant someone with a bit of rep or importance, so he twisted the Condor round a little to aim the sensor down that way and give him the best view possible.
As the cameras focussed and zoomed in on the van, he saw the markings on the side indicating large decals – but the angle was bad to read the specific text. However he could see that the van was a specialised design – a moving lorry. The rear ramp was very low, and the lumbering motion suddenly made sense, the air shocks and massive suspension gave for a smooth ride over rough terrain, but did sometimes make it feel more like sailing rather than driving.
He watched as the crew got out, and marked them as a team, much like his own, just from the way they interacted and how they moved and covered each other. Their leader looked like he was cut from the same stock as Aswon, without the height but with an added cigar and a large and obvious pistol worn in a drop holster on his right thigh. A short but stout figure was next to him – almost certainly a Dwarf, and judging by the armoured briefcase held in one hand likely to be either their decker or rigger, carrying their interface hardware. The third member of the team he had pegged as their mage, judging by their robe. At first he thought he was getting a touch of jamming from somewhere as the screen kept throwing up artefacts, but as the figure moved he could see the flashes of light moving with them, as the sequins and rhinestones making up the 'mythic' symbols on the cloak reflected the nearby lights.
Shaking his head in disgust, Marius changed the camera angle to spot the last two members of the team as they got out of the other side of the vehicle. The fourth member was unmistakably a Troll, standing nearly three metres high at a guess, he had a machine pistol in his hand – or at least that's what a casual glance showed. Marius took a second look and then realised the bulk of the troll's body had thrown out his sense of scale, and it was probably a full sized assault rifle cradled in his massive hand, something similar to the gun that Hunter used as his primary weapon. The last of the group was a slender figure – perhaps human or elf, but was dressed in leathers and wore a biker's helmet. He scanned around and couldn't see a motorbike or trike, and a quick run through the footage determined that only a single vehicle had arrived – and he'd seen the figure climb out of the cab, so they hadn't appeared from behind an illusion or spirit concealment. They took a moment to get together, and then somewhat reluctantly the troll put his assault rifle in the cab, they locked up the vehicle and started to head towards the entrance. Marius got some detailed shots of the team all together, then pulled back out with his view, doing a quick scan for any of their targets. He considered a brief transmission to the team, but this just looked like another bunch of Shadowrunners or smugglers heading to the market, and nothing to worry about.
Back inside the market, the team approached the next stall, spotting a pair of older men sitting in plastic camping chairs behind a rough bench made of a sheet of plastic construction material laid over a couple of crates. They had some shelves that looked to have been made in the last century – stained and sagging, with signs of water damage and several large splits or breaks. They held the stock on display though, so they seemed to do the job.
The men seemed to be dressed in a similar fashion – if it wasn't for the situation, they could easily have passed for farmers or menial labourers, wearing stained and muddy clothes that were rugged, hardwearing and dated. Their hair was unkempt, and their stubble looked more like wire wool that would rasp off paint than a soft and strokeable beard. They eyed the team with small, beady eyes, without even the hint of a smile gracing their features.
The stall itself seemed to sell small and discreet firearms – guns designed to fit in small bags, concealable holsters at the small of the back or calf, or maybe mounted under a seat in a vehicle. Alongside those were a few odd looking grenades, and a variety of knives and other small melee weapons – coshes and clubs in a variety of styles.
Aswon stepped forwards, and carefully flicked open his jacket, then selected a throwing knife from his bandolier, and held it out hilt first to one of the men.
"Do you have anything of a similar size to this, but perhaps better quality?" The man reached out and took it from his hand, and then inspected it carefully, testing the edge of the blade on his thumb. Next he found the balance point of the knife, setting it rocking on his extended finger, before flipping it up into the air and catching it deftly, then placing the point on the end of his finger and balancing it there. It wasn't showy, but he did display a proficiency and skill with how quickly he balanced and tested the blade, that gave Aswon a good feeling.
"You good with these?"
"I am proficient with them, but there's always room for improvement." The old man snorted, and then nodded.
"How many do you have?"
"I've got ten of these, including the one you have." The man sniffed, and they could hear phlegm rolling around in his sinus cavity, before he turned his head to the side and spat, a mass of gloopy liquid landing in a splot on the ground. He turned back and addressed Aswon again, holding out his hand, palm up.
"I need four more then." He started to sidle around his bench, to close towards Aswon, and the other man pushed himself up from his chair and rummaged around under the counter before he pulled out a dartboard. He walked towards the back of the van, and hung the board from one of the doors, then moved out of the way.
Aswon pulled four more of his knives out, handing them over to the man and then grabbed the rest himself, fanning them out in his off-hand, before glancing over at Kai and the rest of the team and giving a little shrug. It wasn't like he'd tried to get into a competition, but he wasn't going to back out now he had one.
The old man flipped one of the knives into the air, catching it in his throwing hand by the flat of the blade, before swiftly flicking from the wrist in a strange underhand throw. The knife shot across the intervening distance and struck the dartboard, the point digging in and the handgrip vibrating rapidly for a moment. He sniffed, then moved to the side to let Aswon have his throw. Aswon raised his arm upwards, his hand going back over the shoulder in a more traditional throwing motion, and his knife struck the board too, slightly closer to the bullseye than the old man's.
Alternating between them, they threw the remaining four knives at the board. It was reasonably close, but Aswon had edged closer to the centre of the board with each of his knives, and had one shot within millimetres of the centre – clearly taking the lead.
"For you, these are not toys, I think. Clean, sharp. Nice. We can do business." He gestured to the board, and while Aswon retrieved his knives, the old man sorted through some boxes of stock until he found what he was looking for, and bought it over to the bench. When the box was opened, it contained a plastic tray with angled slots, and in each slot was a knife quite similar in form and size to Aswon's. "Try this. Watch edge though. Sharp, but brittle."
Aswon reached down and grabbed the knife at the end and was a little surprised at the weight of it – it was heavier than his own blades, and the balance was a little different. But, it felt comfortable in his hand, and after a few trials he found the balance point and could flip them into the air and catch them safely enough. The blades were a milky white, and looked to be made of some kind of ceramic or plastic – they gave a strange sensation when touched, and felt very unlike the standard metal blades he was used to.
"Cut well, until you hit metal, then they tend to chip and get damaged. Need a special stone to sharpen them then, and bring them back. But very discreet. No metal, and materials don't normally detect in a portal. Good for work in town or club." Aswon examined the knife again and then looked at the rest of the set. If they were designed with unusual materials, then the standard metal detectors and weapon scanners built into the doorway for corporate buildings, bars, banks and other such sites probably wouldn't detect them, allowing him to enter the controlled spaces with a lethal weapon with relative ease.
"Very nice. So – how much for this set of ten, and the sharpening stone? You do have the sharpening stone for them, right?" The man nodded, and returned to his pile, pulling up a smaller package and showing the stone inside with a set of polishing fluids and bevelled edge guides.
"I can do the ten, and the stone for…. A thousand." He stared at Aswon, but it was Kai that responded, offering to come in at five hundred. They haggled a little, and after a quick back and forth agreed on seven hundred and fifty for the set.
"May I see one of those?" Shimazu asked once business was concluded on the first purchase, pointing at a long blade propped up in the centre of a shelf. It was double edged, looking like a recreation of a Roman Gladius, but made of modern materials. The old man bought it over and placed it on the table, letting Shimazu pick it up and check it. Both sides were sharpened to a razor edge, as was the short pointed tip, while a fuller ran down the spine of the weapon. A short handguard protruded out a few millimetres from all sides of the hilt, just enough to catch a weapon that was sliding down the blade. The handle and pommel were plain, made of robust materials but without any unnecessary adornment. The whole thing was designed to be a practical, quality method of dismembering your opponent, without any frills or special features – no survival kits built into the handle, or fake water patterns impressed onto the blade. "Very nice… how much are these?"
"Five thousand – but as you have made a purchase already, I will do for four and a half thousand. But that is my best price – take it or leave it. Cougar blades have great reputation, but are expensive." Shimazu whistled quietly and Kai swallowed. Four and a half grand for a knife? It didn't even bring you a biscuit either…
"Ok, thanks. That's a very nice blade. But do you have anything… a bit more. Um… special?"
The two men looked at each other, then back to the team, including giving Anahita a stare. She smiled, but didn't say anything. After what felt like a long pause, the man put the Cougar blade back onto the shelf and then looked for another box, placing it back onto the table. Flipping the box lid open, there was a single blade in the box along with a pair of power cells, a cleaning kit and some instructions in a multi-lingual plastic book. The team looked down in confusion, wondering why a knife needed instructions.
The old man grabbed the knife and after a quick check on the sealed power cell, pulled out a cable and clipped two small connectors onto the power input terminals, while the other man connected the far end to the batteries that powered the set of lights shining down on the stall. A high pitched buzzing snarl erupted from the knife, and a red light illuminated around the handgrip. A quick slash on some old packaging materials bought forth a howl from the weapon as the rapidly oscillating blade sheared through the container, slicing a chunk off.
Shimazu smiled, and turned to Kai.
"Just imagine the psychological impact of that, if you're asking someone questions. I mean, having someone hold a knife to you is generally something to worry about. Having someone start up a tame chainsaw next to you and threaten you with it is a whole new level. I like this a lot."
The two old men broke into smiles as Shimazu described the use-case, and their rotting and broken teeth made for some unpleasant grimaces.
"Two thousand for kit, including power cells, charger and cleaning things." Shimazu looked back to Kai, who was already reaching for the credstick, having seen how keen Shimazu was. They exchanged credit and goods, and Shimazu tucked the box under his arm, almost breaking into a smile.
As they were moving off from the knife stall, Marius picked up a whole group of inbound targets that were closing on the market. He pushed the drone up higher to get a wider view, and watched as five small choppers flew in towards the landing area, in a V formation. They set down in three adjacent pitches, just squeezing in two choppers at opposite corners of two, and the lead craft in the centre.
All five craft were individual, being different designs and manufacturers, different colour schemes and having unique signatures. As he examined each one though, he saw that all five were painted up in the livery for a different media outlet. At a guess, they were sporting the same photo-voltaic paint scheme he used on his own vehicle, and could probably change logos and colour schemes at the flick of a switch.
He watched as the pilots got out of their craft – a human and a troll from the choppers in the left element, a human and an orc from the choppers to the right, and a dwarf from the centre craft. After meeting up and having a quick discussion, they secured their vehicles and headed towards the entrance.
With two groups of almost certain smugglers or runners displaying significant capabilities or interest, he gathered a few seconds of video footage along with some of the better still shots he'd taken, added some notes and then compressed them down into a tight stream of data and put them over the radio net, so the team could see who else was about, before resuming his overwatch for their targets.
The team paused as they received their messages, and gathered around Hunter who bought up the data stream on his PDA and showed them the images of the other teams. They were able to glance back and watch as the five 'news' crew came in, and watched as the crowd gave them the same attention that they'd had themselves. Some of the crowd of visitors and some of the stalls waved a greeting, and it wasn't long before the steadily thickening crowd moved on to other matters.
The team headed over to the penultimate stall on the southern side of the market, a pair of guys dressed 'smart casual' standing amongst a sea of glossy sales material and packaged items. It looked more like the kind of display they would have expected to see at a legitimate conference or expo centre, right down to the branded giveaways of coasters, memory chips, replacement stylus or data cables for your PDA and a few baseball caps and t-shirts.
As they closed, they saw a few tablets displaying the sales video, showing insincere doctors, nurses and apparent patients smiling and laughing about having replacement hands, feet or even full cyber-limbs, in a variety of styles. There was accompanying sales drivel streaming across the screen, but none of the team could read it – the characters were Cyrillic though, which meant it was from somewhere in Eastern Europe most likely.
The team had a cursory look at the gear, leafing through the materials and saw that in addition to the cyber-limbs, the company also seemed to manufacture or market a number of armour or dermal replacement products. Kai chatted with the two sales reps to sound them out, listening as they talked in somewhat accented English about their new products and the advantages their design process gave. Once they had the basic details though, and Kai had explained that they were mostly magical and it wasn't really the gear for them, they moved away, and as before had a quick look around.
Aswon looked up, catching a flash of movement above, and caught sight of a guard high up in the ruined tower, leaning over the edge and looking down at the crowd. It looked like he was armed with a sub-machine gun, and he also had a watcher spirit present in astral space, keeping an eye out below. Dropping his voice, Aswon warned the team, and with nothing else catching their eye, they moved on towards the final stall on the southern side.
This stall was perhaps the mostly bright of them all so far – as well-lit as the 'professional' display for cyber-limbs they'd just visited, but also as bright and in your face with the display as the electronics stand of Pavel. As they got closer, it became apparent why – the stall was full of children's toys in boxes designed to appeal to an average age of six to twelve years old.
Confused, they moved closer, and spotted the fairly subdued sign proclaiming the stall to be 'Eyes in the Skies', and saw the single man running the stand. He had a receding hairline and fairly obvious cyber-eyes – currently zoomed in on some work he was carrying out on one of the toys. A wisp of soldering iron smoke rose from the small workbench, but as they approached he set down his tools, his eyes retracted back to their normal mode and he turned towards them with a cheery smile.
"Good evening folks, looking for anything in particular?"
"No, nothing in particular. But we are curious about what it is exactly you're selling." Kai took the lead, while the rest of the team moved around the front of the stall, examining the rows of toys. The stall owner moved over and reached up to a medium-sized box with some kind of moon rover displayed on the front, racing across a desolate landscape with motion blur and bouncing suspension.
"Well, this here is big-foot, a specialised space raider vehicle that the Lunar Defenders use to keep the evil Replicrons at bay in their struggle to keep the Earth safe!" He carefully pulled open the tab on the box and slid out the inner carton, revealing a large plastic vehicle with a colour scheme matching the box artwork, a little whip antenna and several large buttons mounted below a small screen. "However, if you carefully customise the interior, then instead of being a toy for children designed to introduce them to programming in the Blox language, what you can do is fill up the charging tank at this point here, and deliver a small explosive charge of up to 750 millilitres or perhaps your favourite soporific gas into a room full of corporate guards."
The team had stopped looking around, and all of their attention was riveted on the man as he briefly described how the drone could be controlled or pre-programmed with a series of instructions, would navigate a forty degree slope and drops of up to thirty centimetres and could be outfitted with a number of additional modules from the Lunar Defenders toy range. Setting that aside, he snagged another figure, a posable soldier in a clear transparent case with "Man of Action" written in a large font across the top. Pointing at the various parts of the body, the stall owner described how the high resolution camera had replaced the "eagle eye" function, and along with a sensitive studio grade audio pickup could record several hours of corporate espionage data when snuck into an executive's house via one of their children.
Aswon gestured towards the moon rover, and asked for the price on the device.
"Well the base model with the customised delivery compartment I can do you for about five large."
"Five thousand? Kai – please pay the man. That is SUCH a cool toy. I mean piece of equipment. Just think what we can get up to with that."
"Well, that's just for the chassis bud, it depends what options you want in there. I mean, I guess you want a battery adding for near-silent electrical propulsion? And a rigger interface, so it can be driven interactively? And do you want a camera for high-definition video feedback and analysis?" Aswon nodded along with each option, and the man started to tap away into his tablet, before turning it around and displaying the final configured price – 17,825 Nuyen.
"Too much! Way too much, we can't justify that on something that's going to explode! I mean, up to about ten grand would be possible, if the job justified it – but that's waaay too much." They haggled – not so much on the price which the stall holder didn't seem to want to budge on at all, but on the specification. Taking off the advanced Lithium Polymer fast charge batteries and replacing with a much slower and lower capacity Cadmium based cell bought down the price by a chunk. Dropping out the rigger interface dropped the price a great deal, and swapping the camera out for a basic mono version with lower resolution and contrast bought the price down again – but he couldn't get the price below eleven thousand and still have it as a remotely pilotable drone.
"Much as I would love to have this, I'm afraid that's too high. At least for now. What about…." Aswon cast his eye over the display until he saw a bright orange quad copter. "What about that one – what does that do?"
"Ahh, the 'Mean Machine Quad Copter'. Much simpler design, much cheaper. This has the basic body mostly untouched – it's a fairly simple control system, designed to just fly around and show the children how to control and move in three dimensions. Pretty robust, with shielded fans and resistant to crash damage and collisions from careless navigation. But, what I've done here is managed to move all of the power cells into a series of four serial configurations, and relocate them into the rotor arms, opening the battery bay up to….alternative cargo." The man wiggled an eyebrow at them suggestively.
"Basically, what we have here is a single shot grenade launcher, with a long loiter time operating on the unrestricted 700 Megahertz home remote control frequency. You can load up a splash grenade, ink charge, gas grenade or something fruity like white phosphorous into the bay, and you've got nearly thirty minutes of flight or hover time to move it around, line it up over the target, and then use the central button on the remote here, to drop it straight down. A bargain at only two large, if I do say so myself."
Aswon turned back towards Kai, a beseeching look on his face. Kai was tempted to say no, but Hunter was grinning like a lunatic as well, and Shimazu looked interested. It appeared that toys of mass destruction appealed to several of them, and no doubt Marius was going to enjoy playing with it too. With a sigh, he fished out his credstick and paid for the quad copter, which was carefully packaged up in bright plastic film and handed over.
They were interrupted by a double click over the radio, then a short alarm buzzer. Grabbing their new purchase, they moved away from the stall and headed towards the tower and the food vendors, stopping about halfway between the two.
"Saab Wolverine approaching, standby. Will send video in a minute." The audio from Marius was short and clipped, as he concentrated on moving the drone into position. The Condor drone jetted silently over towards the side of the inner zone, watching as the armoured personnel carrier thundered along the access road, sliding through a turn and heading towards the parking area. The unfortunate man with the coloured lamp had to dive out of the way as the APC bore down on him, running over the rope and sliding to a halt in the parking area allocated to them, and a few moments later the team sprawled from the vehicle, laughing and pointing as the man picked himself up off the floor.
Using the descriptions already provided, Marius was quickly able to establish that this was the 'Unsubtle' team, and got the drone to get a lock on each one of the figures, tracking their thermal signatures and starting to work on pattern recognition so it could track them through a crowd. The got together in a group, and had a discussion, and the troll seemed to throw his hands in the air in some display of anger or frustration. The leader stood with hands on hips, not moving, until the troll seemed to capitulate, and went to the side of the APC, stashing their large combat axe and huge slab shield, instead pulling out a large cargo container and attaching some netting to it, before slinging it over their shoulder.
The leader turned towards one of the other members, a female ork by the looks of things. More words were had, and they too remonstrated about whatever it was, before slumping, drawing two swords from their back scabbards and placing them into the APC too. A moment later their jumpsuit which had been a glowing green colour changed to a dark and moody purple. The other human followed the orc and troll, who set off after their leader as he strode towards the entrance to the market.
Once he had a few seconds of video showing their movement and body language, and a few still images with the best resolution he could get compressed and encapsulated, he squirted it over their encrypted channels, trying to keep their radio presence down to a minimum. A moment later he got the response code from Hunter's tablet, indicating that the download was complete and intact, and Marius turned his attention back to following Unsubtle as they headed towards the entrance.
"Ok, looks like we need to get ready. I'm thinking we should start to split up now. Anahita and I will continue walking the stalls on the other side, but just to get some face time and see what they have for sale. Shimazu and Tads, if you head through the middle and keep an eye on the northern stalls, keep an eye out for them and start some subtle surveillance, Hunter and Aswon, you pair go grab some food, and drop back to this side so you can watch this side, and move around if needed. That way we have astral vision across all areas, and should be able to get a look at them from different angles. Sound good?" Everyone nodded to him, and they split into their pairs and started to head away from each other to get into position.
As they did, they noticed a general movement in the crowd, with lots of people seeming to head towards the cage near the entrance. A tinny announcement from the speakers located around the cage confirmed that the first fight of the night was almost ready to start. The team hustled along, using the movement of the crowd to cover their actions.
Kai and Anahita started to work down the stalls, trying to spend a bare minimum of time at each, whilst still getting some 'face' time that would hopefully let Kai be at least remembered. The stall at the north east corner was run by a Mr Cee, who sold a range of Bioware and Nanoware of uncertain providence. A lot of his stock appeared to be strands of bioware cultivated to enhance certain skills and operations, allowing the recipient to run faster or jump higher. There were also some nerve treatments that deadened pain, allowing for the normal reactions unimpeded by taking wounds in combat or damage from the environment.
The next stall was another slave market – but this time instead of computer modified entranced slaves, they appeared to be unrestrained by drugs or technology – instead controlled by chains and handcuffs. All of the slaves were very dark skinned as well, with dark curly hair, looking very similar to Aswon in their skin tone and style. A couple of men sat with shock prods across their laps, drinking and smoking cigars whilst they waited for potential buyers to come and check their wares.
The radio activated, and a string of Mandarin came over as Shimazu warned the team to stay away from the stall. Kai saw Tads and Shimazu working further along the centre of the market, but Shimazu made eye contact with him for a moment, and Kai nodded in acknowledgement. He didn't know what Shimazu had seen or recognised, or why he'd spoken in Mandarin – but he probably had a reason not to tell the whole team. Kai shrugged – he'd have to ask him later what the reason was, but for now he was happy to trust him, and he and Anahita moved on.
He almost stumbled to a halt as he reached the next stall, and recognised the man standing there. The man looked over and greeted him, and Kai gave a weak smile and half-hearted wave back, then approached him. He was sure he'd seen him before, but he couldn't place him, and the name evaded him completely. On the other hand, the guy didn't seem to recognise him at all, so at least he wouldn't be offending him.
A few minutes chatting established that the guy was selling fake identities and credsticks, nearly all of them for human males, based in and around Iraq. That made sense if he was a local, but not particularly helpful overall. He queried if the man had any IDs for medical practitioners, and was told that he had some veterinarian assistants, but nobody actually in the medical field. He asked the guy to hang on to those IDs for him, and slipped him a few Nuyen as a 'holding fee', promising to return later for them.
Another data squirt from Marius arrived, as he saw another interesting team arrive in a large cargo chopper. Marius couldn't do anything about the team being split up, but at least if they got a moment to plug their comms into their PDAs, they could review the data whenever they got the chance, while Hunter could view it immediately. The video showed the twin rotor craft come in for a landing, and a dwarf and two humans emerge, followed by something very odd indeed – Hunter could see immediately why Marius had sent this over. It was a large form, something the size of a big troll, but was moving as if on all fours. The figure was covered in a modified burka of some kind, and had a very unusual gait. As before, the team of four buttoned up their craft and headed for the entrance, carrying no obvious weapons beyond a few holstered pistols.
Hunter gave a discreet cough, as he raised a kebab to his mouth, and gestured very carefully with his head, before taking a bite and leaning back in his chair, chewing his food noisily. Aswon moved in his chair, scratching his leg a little and looking down as if some insect was annoying him, casting his eyes to the side and watched as the Unsubtle team entered the food area, and headed to one of the vans to grab food and drink. Now that he was aware of their presence, he started to focus his magical talents, gradually eliminating the ambient noise of the area and filtering down so he could listen in to their conversation. Whilst he turned away and concentrated on the audio, Hunter continued to stare just past his team mate, keeping them under visual observation.
Shimazu and Tads meandered around the area to the north of the food court, keeping an eye on the exits and looking around in case anyone headed towards the other team, trying to do a brush past or swap any data or credsticks. Most people though seemed to give them a certain amount of space, as if they didn't want to get any closer than they had to.
The next stall along for Kai was another broker – but rather than IDs and credsticks, this guy dealt in information. Introducing himself as 'Manuel' he described a private subsection of Shadowland, in which he curated information delivered by other subscribers, sharing it out to those in need, providing up to date information on border crossing, supply and demand of rare goods, hostilities in the area and many other useful bits of information for your average smuggler. With an asking price of a grand a month, Kai thought it was worth a punt, and slapped down his credstick for three months membership, syncing his phone with Manuel for a moment to retrieve the access code and cypher keys, before moving on to the next stall.
This was manned by a Japanese gentlemen, smartly dressed and introducing himself as Mr Haramishas. He was another vendor of black market biotechnology, with a focus on improved athletic prowess and ability. If you needed to run faster, lift more, throw harder or hold your breath for longer – he was the guy to come and see.
Kai nodded, smiled, made some suitably empty statement about how impressed he was, but it wasn't quite what he was looking for, and then moved on, towards another gun stall next in line. The operator was a red-faced man with a waxed moustache, wearing some kind of old fashioned army fatigues. Over his head was a somewhat ornate sign, with gold text painted on a black background proclaiming 'Frank Whittle est 1996 of Chipping Sodbury'. The man couldn't have been the original Frank Whittle, but perhaps the second in his family with that name. On seeing Kai pay attention to his sign, he loudly called over to him, leaning forward and planting brawny arms onto the kitchen worktop that had been pressed into service as a counter.
"Awight sonny boy, wot you after?" Kai looked past him to the mass of hardware pinned on the wall, most of which looked distinctly unusual. They had components that were clearly gun like – triggers and grips, barrels and ammunition magazines, but many of them had other strange parts also attached – pipes, tubes, small radar dishes mounted around the muzzles, gas cylinders or fuel tanks and much more. There were even a few things that looked like a laser gun out of a trid-feature. Kai shook his head at the man.
"Nothing for me thank you, I'm fine."
"Wassa matter? Got no testicles? You some kind of wus?"
"I've got just enough to keep me happy thanks." The man in the stall sniffed theatrically.
"Smell like a bloody commie to me. Hoppit! Ain't got no time for the likes of you!" Kai bit his tongue, and moved away – clearly this guy wasn't going to be one of the people who remembered him fondly.
Under the tower, Aswon felt a gentle push on his leg as Hunter reached out with his foot and poked him. Aswon was concentrating on what he could hear, filtering out all the surrounding noise, but he could see Hunter's eyes tracking from right to left, as he followed somebody moving. A moment later he could hear speech – someone new to the area.
"The Lady is waiting for you, in tent number three." He twisted slightly in his seat, just enough to see Unsubtle sitting at their table and one of the market staff standing next to them, a small automatic weapon slung under his arm, crouched slightly to speak to the team leader. Turning back, he keyed up his microphone and relayed the message to the rest of the crew.
On hearing the message, Marius immediately started to move the Condor, swinging it round in an arc to get a better line of sight on the three tents that had been put up by the market crew. They had no idea which was which, but he should be able to spot them all with careful placement, and track the movement. While the Condor was drifting into position, he also activated the systems on his strike drone, warming up the systems and feeding in his authentication codes and zeroing the nav system. He held short of igniting the engines – it drank fuel at a prodigious rate, and it was also quite noisy – but he'd be able to launch it at relatively short notice.
Kai looked around at the situation, and then sent a quick message over his phone to the team chat: "Converge and observe".
Across the marketplace, the three teams started to drift into position, forming a triangle around the Unsubtle team as they necked their drinks and gathered their gear, the troll lifting the large cargo module onto his back once more. As they started to move towards the three tents at the east of the market, they were watched from different angles, each pair moving to get the best vantage point and waiting to see what would happen next.
