Steel Rain (18 page)

"You spoke of a chrome killer who works cheaply for a mage," Machiko says. "The mage was described as a brain-buster. The killer said he will make the world safe for crazies and destroy all corps. You will tell me more."

Choca screams out curses. She screams as one suffering
agony when Machiko renews the pressure on her ear.

"Do not deceive yourself. You will talk. If you do not respond to pain, I will summon a mage and he will enter your mind. And when we are done you will desire only merciful death."

"
Stop
it!
Stop!
" Choca shrieks.

Machiko eases the pressure.

"You're asking me what I heard," Choca says hoarsely. "That's all I know. I heard this
gillette
in a
bar
talking all kinds of
drek
! I never seen him before. I swear!"

"Perhaps you gave him service."

"So what if I did."

"At his doss?"

"I don't remember!"

More pressure. More shrieks and convulsive tremors. "
Okay!
okay!
okay!
FRAG
IT
!"

"The killer's name."

"Jank!
Jank
!"

"His address."

Choca mumbles an address. Machiko stands and tells the
kobun
behind her, "This person will accompany us."

The
kobun
seize Choca. Machiko leads the group from the lavatory to the front door of the bar and onto the sidewalk. She sees at once that the scene outside has changed. Sirens whoop and wail. An emergency service van marked for the NYPD Inc. is just then turning onto the block, blue lights strobing. Several armored patrol vehicles are already parked up and down the block. Numerous uniformed officers are moving about, checking the bodies of the dead gangers, speaking into commlinks and shining flashlights around.

As she steps onto the sidewalk she nearly collides with a trio of officers.

All three turn to face her abruptly. All three look at her as if astonished. One commands her to halt. Another moves a hand to his gun. The third steps toward her, reaching out with both hands, but before he can close the distance, the headman of
kobun
steps in and shoves, and the officer staggers backward and falls.

All three officers draw guns. One shouts into a commlink, "Ten-thirteen! ten-thirteen!" The others shout, "We got a situation!"

"
Get
on
the
ground!
Get
on
the
ground
!"

Machiko crosses her arms and waits. Through it all, she hears the footsteps of the
kobun
exiting the bar, fanning across the sidewalk behind her. She sees the NYPD officers' surprise and uncertainty swelling rapidly toward panic. For every
kobun
that exits the bar, the NYPD officers shift back
another step, then another. They move to take cover as the
kobun
from the side and rear exits of the bar join the group on the sidewalk. More excited calls over commlinks. More sirens arising from all around. Before long, Machiko and the others are staring into the guns of some twenty to twenty-five NYPD officers, some in heavy armor.

Machiko waits, arms crossed, spirit settled.

The men of Yoshida
-kai
follow suit.

"Oh,
drek!
" Choca mutters. "
Drek!
drek!
drek
!" Inevitably, one man steps forward. His uniform is marked by gold braid and a captain's insignia. He comes to within about three meters and pauses. He pops something, candy or perhaps a nut, into his mouth, chews, then pops another. He conceals an anxious spirit behind a mask of nonchalance.

"My name's Burke," he says. "We got ourselves a little situation. Suppose we try to talk it out before somebody does something stupid and we all do a lot of shooting."

Machiko replies, "I have no objection."

The captain steps closer. Pops another small something into his mouth and chews. "Busy night for Nagato. For the Guard especially. You got the whole plex in an uproar. What gives?"

It is unfortunate that this captain and his officers wear the uniform of the NYPD Inc. Of the three major corps making a business of law enforcement in the plex, the NYPD Inc. ranks as the least corruptible, perhaps because the union that owns and controls the corp ruthlessly excises any members found to be corrupt. Machiko therefore expects that this Captain Burke will act in accordance with police regulations, and that he would be unlikely to accept a bribe as a solution to his "situation."

"We are engaged in proprietary operations involving a known corporate terrorist," Machiko says. "You need not involve yourself or the NYPD corporation in these activities."

"Not get involved?" The captain affects surprise. "You got this whole damn street littered with dead men."

"You have witnesses to this?"

"Take a look around. I can see three or four meatjobs from right where I'm standing."

"Corpses lying in the street are not my concern."

"You got nothing to do with this? Is that what you're
telling me?"

"The corpses of gangers lying in the street is not a matter concerning Nagato Combine. Therefore, I will have nothing to do with it. That is what I am saying."

"You will if you say I you will."

"Do you wish to negotiate or to make threats you may come to regret?"

"You did notice this isn't Nagato property, right?"

"Indeed. It is part of the whole megaplex, which must be defended from the violent criminal elements that threaten all our people. Our respective organizations share responsibility for meeting that threat, as do all corporate citizens."

The captain spends a moment gazing at Machiko steadily, perhaps considering what she has said. "Lemme explain something. I'm the police. That makes me the legal authority here. And the law says you and your people are civilians. That's my point."

"Like you," Machiko replies, "I am a corporate officer, and I am engaged in the business of my corporation. That is my point."

The captain chews another of his small treats. "Let's cut the hype. You're a yak. Nagato's a yak operation. Those boys behind you are yakuza muscle."

"I am GSG. You should know what that implies."

"I'm well aware. I've seen phys-adepts in action. That's why we're standing here having this talk. But what you better know is that I can't have civilians shoving my cops around. That doesn't wash.
Comprende
?"

"You mean that something must be done."

"Dead scoots are a problem. Cops come first."

A wise philosophy. "What do you propose?"

"It's your move. Make a suggestion."

Machiko considers, then turns her head slightly as if to look back. "Shoeo."

One of the
kobun
comes striding swiftly toward her. He pauses at her side and bows. Machiko extends a hand.

"Your weapons."

Shoeo hands her a heavy automatic, nunchaku, two knives, and a taser. Machiko passes these to the headman of
kobun
, then looks back to Shoeo.

"You should not have pushed the NYPD officer. This disreputable act has caused embarrassment not only to Nagato Combine, but also to the NYPD corporation. The captain will hear your confession."

Shoeo bows, then turns to the Captain and bows again. "I
confess to the dishonorable shoving of the NYPD officer.

Please arrest me at once."

The captain looks briefly to Machiko, then turns and motions two of his officers forward. They approach warily, but with guns in holsters. They put Shoeo in handcuffs, conduct a cursory search, then lead him away. The captain looks to Machiko. He watches her a moment, then says, "I don't want any more incidents tonight. Whatever you're doing, keep it discreet. And move it the hell outta my precinct."

Machiko bows politely.

Corporate honor is satisfied.

Machiko motions her group to the Infinitis. She moves to the leading sedan and puts Choca into the rear seat ahead of herself. They drive a total of nine blocks in the shadows of the elevated subway line, past shuttered stores and grime-smeared bars, and come to a halt in front of a blackened brick structure, five stories tall, bearing the sign, "Fulton Ave Hostel."

Lieutenant Enotori enters through the battered gray metal door at the front of the hostel. The headman of
kobun
sends several of his men to watch the decrepit-looking fire escape dangling over one alleyway and to check for a rear exit. Devil rats dart away from their feet, fleeing piles of rubbish in search of safer refuge.

Enotori returns looking a bit disheveled. "I had to get rough with the clerk."

"Jank is registered?"

"Room four-two-three."

Machiko wastes no time. She moves to the entrance, pursued by the headman and some number of
kobun
. The metal door opens on a lobby that is little more than a corridor, sided on the right by the service counter of the hostel clerk. The clerk meets Machiko's roving eyes with a look of shocked alarm, but holds himself motionless. This reaction is mimicked by the sundry dozen norms and orks camping on tattered cots and filthy blankets along the left wall of the entrance corridor.

Squatters' quarters. Sleeping space for the destitute, the SINless, the dispossessed, the victims of ever-advancing
technology and intercorporate war. In them, Machiko sees
the cost of defeat, the fate of all persons who lack the resources and determination to face their enemies and fight. The mere thought of the people of Nagato Combine ever suffering such a fate only strengthens her resolve.

She finds stairs just past the service counter, a stairway of steel mesh and rickety, rusting supports. The entire structure rattles and rings with her every step. She has no need for stealth.

On the third-floor landing, a trio of males, two orks, one norm, see her coming and flatten their backs to the walls, hands uplifted, palms open.

One of the orks affects a bow.

Machiko seizes his nape, but gently. "You know a one named Jank?"

She speaks in English. The ork affects another bow, deeper this time, very respectful, and replies in accented Japanese, "Yes, honorable one! Yes, I do! Jank is one floor up!"

"Show me."

The ork leads hurriedly up the stairs. The fourth floor corridor is lined with more indigents, sitting, sleeping, sometimes two or more to a blanket or cot. The doors to rooms are barely three meters apart and only a rare few are marked by any numbers, and even these are scrawled like so much graffiti.

The ork indicates a door. Machiko gestures. The ork backs away and
kobun
move to either side of the door.

Machiko drives her fist against the door lock. The flimsy macroplas surrounding it shatters. The door bursts inward. Machiko reaches for the grip of her katana, moving forward, but then lowers her hand to her side.

The rank stink that meets her nose is almost overpowering. She must settle herself, focus, before moving forward.

The room is a squatdoss, an enlarged coffin: no window, no telecom, no accessories. The walls are brown with stains and the scrawlings of former tenants. The floor is ancient blackened tile that crackles underfoot. A small army of roaches darts across the floor and dives under the mattress lying along the right. Opposite on the left lie a backpack and duffel bag. Machiko signals the
kobun
to remain at the doorway and steps cautiously, quietly to the "bed."

Lying on the bed is a male norm, nude. Jank. He lies in a putrid pool of his own filth. His features are obviously Chinese. He does not look tall, but his physique is huge, his muscles like braided cables, bulging beneath the skin, his chest like a massive dynamo, even in repose. His skull is bare but for a wedge of hair arcing over the top and data-jacks at his temples. A polymer armored sheath, bonded to his flesh, covers everything beneath the level of his jaw. Both lower arms scan like cybernetic replacements, bulging with compartments and accessories: a tactical comp, a gyro-stabilizer for weapons fire.

Beside Jank's head lies the squat gray plas of a sensedeck, a deck obviously modified or repaired, held together by macroplas tape. The yellow cable descending from the data-jack in Jank's left temple connects to the deck. Beside the deck lie a number of simsense chip-carriers colored in bright reds and yellows and labeled as BTL, with names like "Bustout," and "Trogbash," and "Dirty Brown Scum."

The sensedeck is running, a chip is loaded.

Every few moments Jank twitches and murmurs, like an antique CD spinning around and around, outputting the same data endlessly.

The twitching turns convulsive. The murmurs rise into shouts. "Stinking trogs! Weed-eaters!
Take
it
take
it
take
it!
GONNA
GET
YOU
ALL!
EAT
YOU
ALIVE!
BURY
YOU!
YOU
AND
ALL
THE
DREK
-
SUCKING
SCUM
-"

Abruptly, his eyes snap open and gaze straight up at the ceiling like a man gone blind. He is nearly sitting up with the violence of the convulsions wracking his entire body.