Hammerjack Page 6

  “What arrangement?” Cray snapped. “The one where you tell me what to do and I do it?”

  “I believe those were the terms.”

  “Null and void when you don’t give me the whole truth.”

  “Ahh . . . ” Yin pronounced, circling around the marble desk and taking a seat behind it. He leaned back and regarded his guest in an amused way, like a teacher with a slow student. “The betrayal. The righteous indignation. You play the part of the wounded soldier quite well.”

  “I’m not playing, Yin.”

  “Of course you are, my boy. We’re all players here—although I must admit a little disappointment. After the ruthless way you dealt with those Zone agents, I had cause to hope you had evolved beyond this.”

  Cray had no intention of allowing this to continue. In a fluid motion, he swept a small device out of his pocket and leveled it in front of Yin’s face.

  “Maybe I have,” Cray said.

  Yin didn’t show any fear—only a detached interest. “I’m impressed,” he said. “The sentry scan should have detected your weapon and stopped you.”

  “I’m handy that way. Ever seen one of these before?”

  “A v-wave emitter, isn’t it?”

  “Close-quarters assassination tool,” Cray finished for him. “I pulled it off of a Zone agent—right after Zoe took his head off with it.”

  “Resourceful girl.”

  “Dead girl. You saw to that from the start, didn’t you?”

  “You think waving that thing in my face will get you answers?”

  “Maybe I’ll just settle for your life.”

  “That wouldn’t be very productive,” Yin said. “And if murder were your intention, you would have done it by now.”

  A long moment passed between them. Somewhere in the interim, Cray admitted to himself that Yin was right. Pulling the trigger would have given him a moment’s satisfaction, but wouldn’t change anything. It was a meaningless form of revenge—and the price would have been his life.

  He disarmed the emitter, shoving it across the marble desk. The weapon came to a rest in front of Yin, who picked it up and examined it dispassionately. “Clearly, the Zone Authority underestimated our Zoe.”

  Cray seethed quietly. “I didn’t.”

  “So I heard. The Authority was rather displeased with you. They swear that if you ever show your face in the Asian Sphere, they’ll kill you as many times as possible.” Yin got up, patting Cray on the shoulder as he walked over to his own bar. “But I wouldn’t worry. From the looks of things, you’re quite capable of fending them off.”

  Cray shook his head in amazement. “Nothing gets to you, does it?”

  Yin poured himself a scotch, not bothering to offer one to his guest. “Not in the course of business,” he replied. “I’ll confess, I hold you in a certain regard, Cray—but I hold no reservations about using you in the manner best suited to accomplish my objectives. If that means withholding information, then so be it.”

  “I could have brought her in alive, Yin.”

  “Perhaps,” Yin said, returning to his desk, “but that’s very unlikely. I knew you would try, however—and that’s why I deceived you.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “The girl was Inru, Cray. Or didn’t you surmise that for yourself?”

  The mention of the word sapped both his anger and his strength. Cray was forced to sit down, his mind trying to reconcile what he just heard with what he saw back in Singapore.

  “She was on a mission for her guru,” Yin continued. “The information Zoe carried was intended to further their goals.”

  “Are you sure about this?”

  Yin was casual. “Not everything is about economics, my friend.”

  A stale hint of fear settled on Cray’s tongue. “Those people are crazy,” he whispered. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

  “I know precisely what I’ve done. I’ve given them a martyr—or, more precisely, you have.” Yin swiveled around in his chair, facing the parade of pulser traffic that passed outside his window. “By now, the Inru’s hammerjacks have ascertained that you were the one who tracked Zoe down. Ultimately, any blame for her death will rest with you.”

  “No way. I won’t let you hang that on me.”

  “What are you going to do? Explain how you tried to save her?” Yin laughed. “You underestimate your reputation, Cray. How many runners have you brought back to me? Ten? Twenty? Your exploits on behalf of the Collective are well known in the subculture.”

  Yin knew what he was talking about. He had made a career out of being invisible, but Cray was the one always out in front. Any decent hammerjack knew Cray’s name as well as his methods, the same way a hustler knew all the cops on his turf. Obviously, Yin had put a lot of thought into this—and Cray had stepped right into his trap.

  “Son of a bitch,” Cray muttered. “You just put my head in a noose.”

  “Now you’re getting the idea,” Yin said offhandedly.

  Cray wished he had the emitter back, if only to use it on himself. He had spent enough time in the Axis to know that most of the stories about the Inru were real. If what Zoe had done was any example of their determination, it wouldn’t be long before they came for a piece of him.

  Unless Yin is just trying to scare me off.

  Cray thought he detected a slight tension in the man’s voice—not much, but enough to make him suspicious. “You’re offering me protection,” he said, following that track. “In exchange for what?”

  Yin turned back around. “Nothing more than you’ve given me the last ten years,” he answered. “As well as your discretion. It would be unfortunate if our competitors gained any more knowledge of these events. Of course, the choice is yours.”

  Cray’s lips pursed into a tight smile. “No, Yin—you’re the one with a choice to make, and you better make the right one. Because if you don’t tell me what’s really going on, I will walk out of here and dig it out for myself. I will sink into every goddamned corner of the Axis until I find out what you’re hiding.”

  There was silence as Yin thought it over, his black eyes evaluating Cray as a potential enemy. That Yin could have him killed was a realistic danger, one Cray had considered before making his demands. But Yin was also practical. As long as he needed Cray, he would not exercise that option.

  Yin conceded, spreading his hands in an open gesture. “What do you want to know?”

  So I get to live, Cray thought. For now.

  “Before I came up here,” he said, “I checked GenTec’s domain for signs of a proprietary trace. Imagine my surprise when I saw you had been compromised. That stuff Zoe was carrying originated here, didn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “What the hell is it? My GME told me he’s never seen anything like it.”

  “Something that looks like flash-DNA, but isn’t flash-DNA.”

  Cray leaned in toward him. “Go on.”

  “The next great breakthrough,” Yin explained, getting up and strolling about the room. His eyes scanned the dusty titles on his bookshelves as he spoke, like a professor giving a history lesson. “Strictly in the experimental phase. We believe it has the potential to be the biological storage medium to take the world into the next century.”

  “I take it the Collective doesn’t know about this yet.”

  “No,” Yin admitted, which was confessing the greatest of sins. “The other members of the Assembly would have sought licensing rights, cutting into GenTec’s share of development. We’re already working on a full range of applications for the new technology. The board thought it would be best to keep this to ourselves until we were ready to bring the new flash to market.”

  “That’s what this was about?” Cray asked. “Corporate politics?”

  “That was part of it.”

  “And what about this business with Heretic? Was that just more bullshit?”

  “The most effective lie contains a small portion of the t
ruth.”

  “And it had nothing to do with sweetening the deal for me.”

  Yin shrugged. “The thought did cross my mind.”

  Cray had to laugh. He had been played all right, in more ways than he could have anticipated. For a long time, he had been following the faint traces of Heretic’s signature through the Axis, never coming up with enough data to form a decent profile. That, plus the legend that had built up around the man, made Heretic a prize of sorts—a hammerjack who could operate on the same level Cray did. Yin knew he wouldn’t be able to resist the chance to go up against that, and used it to lure him into making the intercept. It had been bait, pure and simple.

  “So Heretic is working for the Inru now,” Cray mused. “I can buy that. But that doesn’t explain why they would be interested in GenTec.”

  “Ordinary terrorism,” Yin said, heading back to the bar and pouring another drink. “Their founding principle is the destruction of modern technology. What better way to do that than by attacking technology at its source?”

  “This was sabotage.”

  “Incredible, but effective. Heretic was extremely thorough with our records. After downloading the virtual models of the new flash, he destroyed all research materials related to the project. The flash Zoe carried was the only surviving prototype. I had to make sure we got it back.”

  It made a twisted kind of sense—but then the politics of extremism always seemed twisted to Cray. The Inru had started out as a small enough group, a reactionary movement to the Collective displacement of world government. But since then, its message had become more apocalyptic. Their leadership began to see advancing science as the enemy of mankind, and technology as the tool of its enslavement. It didn’t take long for the faithful to turn that belief into dogma and the Inru into a religious cult. The corporate media portrayed them as little more than a fringe group—but there was no way of knowing what their real numbers were. And not knowing was what scared the Collective the most.

  Cray was silent for a time while he sorted it all out. He noticed Yin watching him closely during those moments. “My GME showed me some of the new flash,” he finally announced. “If Zoe had lived long enough, its characteristics would have torn her up on a cellular level. Was that just an oversight or part of the design?”

  “I told you,” Yin said without missing a beat. “It’s still in the experimental phase. But to answer your question, the flash was not designed to be compatible with a living system. The applications we have in mind are strictly ex vitro.”

  “So by assimilating it, she was handing herself a death sentence.”

  “Eventually, yes.”

  Cray shook his head in disbelief. “Jesus Christ.”

  The fiber link on Yin’s desk interrupted the conversation. Yin passed his hand over a flat monitor in the face of the marble desktop, then inserted an earpiece so Cray wouldn’t hear the other side of the conversation. The communication was brief. Cray had to settle for reading Yin’s reactions, which were few and cryptic.

  “Yes,” Yin replied to the caller, nodding his head. “I understand. Dr. Alden is here with me right now. I’ve explained the current situation to him.” A few more moments passed while the caller did the talking, then Yin ended it by adding, “It will be done immediately.”

  The light from the monitor drained away from Yin’s features. He sat down.

  “Bad news?” Cray asked.

  “That was the General Secretary of the Collective Assembly,” Yin told him. “A matter of some urgency has arisen.”

  “What’s the matter?” Cray remarked. “Your bosses want to chat with you about this?”

  “No,” Yin answered. “They want to see you.”

  Cray blinked out of sheer surprise.

  “The Assembly has convened an emergency session,” Yin explained. “The secretary was short on details, but was very clear that I put you on the next SOT to Vienna. It seems they want to ask you a few questions.”

  “What the hell for?” Up until now, Cray had been certain that the real power had never even heard his name. “I don’t have dealings with those people.”

  “You never ask why, Cray.” Yin hit the intercom switch on his fiber link, calling on his personal secretary. Most executives used a virtual assistant, but Yin still enjoyed having his whims catered to by an actual human being. “Kayla, I need you to book a first-class passage for Dr. Alden—Kuala Lumpur to Vienna. I want a pulser on the roof to take him to the airport in fifteen minutes.”

  Yin closed the link. Cray was expecting something from the man—condescension, pity, sadistic pleasure, anything to indicate his reaction to this development—but Yin was blank and guarded. The news could have meant everything or nothing to him, there was no way to tell.

  “I’ll see to it that you get everything you need upon your arrival,” Yin said.

  Cray stood. “Just like that.”

  “You should be used to that by now.”

  “I am,” Cray said, and headed out. Stopping short of the exit, he lingered for a few moments, contemplating the scene as he wanted it to end. I don’t believe you, he would have said. Not a single word. All I need is time, and I’ll be able to prove it. And after that . . .

  After that, what?

  “You don’t want me as an enemy, Cray,” Yin warned. “Don’t entertain any thoughts of aligning yourself with the Assembly, either.”

  Cray turned around.

  “Choose the lesser of two evils?” he asked.

  Yin went rigid.

  “You always have choices,” he said. “I suggest you consider yours carefully before you make it.”

  Cray was more straightforward.

  “I suggest,” he said, “that you go fuck yourself.”

  But Phao Yin only watched.

  Tuned to the sentry monitors, he watched as Cray left the sanctuary and rode the elevator up to the roof. He watched as a pulser landed and took Cray aboard. And lastly, he watched as the gleaming vehicle jumped onto the grid and hurtled past his window, joining the endless stream of traffic that passed over the city. It was what Yin had prophesized, and it was what came to pass.

  He had considered all the possibilities before Cray arrived, but never doubted the outcome. Cray had never been able to conceal his emotions, least of all his outrage. Sending him to intercept Zoe had simply been the final act in a well-orchestrated performance. Yin hated to lose him over that, but such were the sacrifices one made in war. Zoe herself had seen to that—as Cray was only beginning to discover.

  Turning back to his desk, Yin caught sight of the hustler. The kid was still splayed across his couch, stirring now that the neuropatch had run its course. The sight of the young addict made Yin feel a sudden connection with the street, a sensation that had once been familiar to him but now only served as a reminder of his origins.

  He hit the fiber link again, opening a secure port to an address that only he knew. There was an acknowledgment on his display at the point of contact, but nothing else. Those on the other end didn’t have voices in the conventional sense. Yin preferred it to the usual forms of human interaction.

  “Dr. Alden is working with a GME on the Singapore intercept,” he said into the silent link. “Find out who it is and procure any findings from the study. Direct them to my office only. I’ll decide the disposition at that time.”

  He closed the port. Moving worlds was that simple, as long as you knew where to push.

  That left Yin with some time to wait. He spent some of it watching the hustler climb his way back to consciousness, the pain of withdrawal building on his face. The trip was the best money could buy, but getting off it was hard. As soon as his eyes fluttered open, the hustler would be wanting more.

  The kid moaned. Another figure then appeared in the office doorway, as if awaiting her cue. The girl’s face was concealed in shadows, her posture wary and tense like that of an animal.

  “I see you found your way back here,” Yin said to her. The sound of his voice was
familiar to her, and she responded by moving partially into the light. She was also from the street—a hustler in her own right, her body a collection of artificial enhancements, her eyes a feast of addiction.

  Yin placed a small plastic pouch on top of his desk—a pack of neuropatches, the same thing he had given the boy. The girl fixated on them, taking an involuntary step forward before her instincts made her stop.

  Yin smiled coldly.

  Stimulus and response.

  “You want these,” he said to the girl. “You know what to do.”

  She did. The girl had been a guest of Yin’s many times, and never refused what was required of her. Shedding her rags, she walked over to the couch and performed on the young male hustler—all the things Yin liked to see, all the things Yin could never do. Entangled in one another, they went through the motions like automatons operating in a physical plane, flesh connecting while minds disconnected. Yin had a vague sensation of the passage of time, and when it was over he was on his feet, standing above the two of them.

  The girl looked up at him and twisted her lips into a smile. She reached without looking for what Yin handed her, familiar with this ritual and his habits. It was a small blade—only a few centimeters long, a dagger from Yin’s collection of antiques. It glinted in the soft light as she raised it above the boy’s chest.

  “Send him on his way,” Yin commanded.

  The suborbital jump from Kuala Lumpur took less than twenty minutes, but speed came with a price. The instant shift across seven time zones played like a meat grinder with Cray’s frayed senses, tossing him into a spin that bit like a hangover. His condition was obvious enough to alarm a flight attendant, who offered him a soother before landing, but Cray refused. The stuff reminded him too much of the drugs some hammerjacks used to keep their logical orientation in the Axis, and that was one trip he didn’t need.

  Instead, he dragged his disorientation with him as he hopped the SOT, making his first stop a place that served the only stimulant Cray had ever fully trusted—caffeine. He greedily assimilated a triple shot of steaming black espresso and watched the world around him regain a remote sense of clarity. With life now pumping through his veins, Cray left a generous tip for the waiter and proceeded back into the distinct vibe that was central Europe.