Merkiaari Wars: 01 - Hard Duty (7 page)

He spent the daylight hours of that week walking the streets, riding in taxis, hopping from one train to another crisscrossing the city and using his sensors to trawl for electronic emissions. His night time hours were spent infiltrating computer networks so that he had as full a picture as possible. His data would impress, he had no doubt. Any Viper could take Thurston’s security apart, but he had no plan to do the terrorists any favours by just handing it over to them. He would much rather slaughter them all, but that really wasn’t his mission.

The day came when he was ready to make contact with the Freedom Movement. He wiped everything on the computer Ken had left, and then physically broke it into pieces before throwing it away far from the hotel. Nothing it had once contained would be recoverable. He didn’t know how competent they were, but if anyone checked his room they would find nothing to suggest he was other than the merc he pretended to be.

He left the hotel and took a taxi to a cafe he had found his first day. He liked it because it fronted onto the plaza outside the Parliament building and he could watch the bustle. He often did that when time permitted, people watching he called it. He always wondered who they were and what they thought of the world around them. It was hard to remember what it had been like, being like them.

Being Human they would see people like themselves and buildings, sky and ground, vehicles going by. They would smell the scent of jungle vegetation on the breeze, and think nothing more about any of it. They would move through the world, oblivious. How wonderful it must be.

He envied them.

When he looked at the world he saw it through layers of data. He glanced outside the taxi at a pedestrian walking by. He didn’t see people, he saw...

>_ White male, dark hair and eyes, 1.9m tall, 97kg, 33 years old approx. Unarmed. Threat potential negligible.

>_ Searching... no matches found.

>_ Search local databases [Y]es/[N]o?

>_ N

When he looked at a building, he didn’t see architecture. He didn’t see artistry or admirable design concepts. He saw stress points and weaknesses. He saw schematics with data appended in colourful boxes and lines leading to points of access, or places where the right amount of explosive would bring the building down, or damage it to varying degrees depending upon the mission’s needs.

When he closed his eyes, he didn’t see blackness. He saw sensor data scrolling by. If he shut that down, he couldn’t while in combat mode, but if he could, he would see internal system data. The sky? Not really. He would see weather forecasts, thermal and atmospheric data, analysis of local conditions such as contaminants in the air, both chemical and bacteriological. There was just no way to separate himself from the machine side of him.

He was the machine.

The taxi let him out at the cafe after he paid with his wand, and he sat down at an empty table outside. He didn’t wait for service preferring to use the table menu to order. He scrolled through the lists on the table top display and chose a pastry that looked good and a strong coffee he recognised from his hotel. A waiter quickly appeared with his order, its android features that of a young woman. A polite smile had been programmed into its features. The android set the food and drink before him and turned so Eric could pay. The receptacle for his wand was in its back centred between the shoulder blades.

The waiter left and Eric enjoyed his pastry.

When he was finished he used his wand in communicator mode and called his contact man. Ken had found the little weasel and promised money for an introduction. A lot of money. That was the reason for the platinum he carried.

“Hello?”

Eric glanced around watching visually and with sensors. None were paying him any mind but he set up a short range scramble regardless.

“The Cafe Reichard, Parliament Plaza. Thirty minutes,” Eric said.

“Who is this?”

“No names. A mutual friend left something for you with me. You know of what I speak?”

The man swallowed audibly. “You have it?” He sounded scared but eager.

“Thirty minutes,” Eric repeated and disconnected.

The time passed quickly, and it wasn’t long before his tap into certain security cameras placed at junctions for traffic management revealed a face he had been watching for. The man wasn’t alone.

Eric used the camera to zoom in and captured an image of both men. He passed that quickly to his processor and ordered a search. The first hit came up quickly and as expected from his own data. It was definitely his contact and the search had found his bio in Ken’s download. The search continued and spread out into local networks after Eric gave it the go ahead. The second hit was the contact man again, and the data filled in some blanks but nothing interesting. His real name was Bryce Kanarion, not Syl Finnegan, the name Ken used for him. Eric had begun to wonder about that when more hits came up in quick succession. Eric grunted unsurprised by a short list of aliases, and now doubted Kanarion was the real name. It didn’t matter. What did, was that Kanarion was a small time crook with contacts above his pay grade by an order of magnitude. Eric wondered how that had happened.

The first hit for the other man appeared and Eric turned his attention to his bio. Eric pursed his lips in thought as more data started coming in. Yi Zhang was no freedom fighter that was certain and it annoyed him. Zhang was just a little man, and Eric didn’t mean his physical stature. Chinese ancestry didn’t always lead to a small build, but it did quite often and had done so in Zhang’s case. No, he was just a businessman, and not a rich one. He owned a small factory making machine tools. No doubt he sold most to the mines. How he connected with a terrorist group Eric couldn’t fathom. Every new bit of data that came up reinforced his none violent nature and that made Eric pause in his assessment.

Everything pointed him in only one direction, but that wasn’t natural. No one was this one-dimensional. Everyone had something to hide even if it was only stealing office supplies. Not so with Zhang. If the data could be believed, he was a saint! That meant the data had been sanitized, but whoever did the work hadn’t understood how to build a truly believable bio. This one screamed false. It said, ‘look at me, I am innocent’ or ‘nothing to find here, go away now’ or ‘I love little animals, none violent is my middle name.’

Eric snorted; yeah right. Zhang was a player, probably small time as yet—his engineering business did seem real—maybe his shady side was a hobby or something. Eric chuckled at the thought. He would keep digging.

Kanarion was supposed to facilitate a meeting, but Yi Zhang could be nothing more than a middle man if that. If Kanarion expected him to pay full price for this introduction, he could think again. Damn him!

Eric followed the two men using Ashfield’s cameras until they entered the plaza. He picked them out on his sensors and tagged them for targeting. Even slowed by the Raytheon inside his clothes, both would be dead before they could think of betrayal. Still, he didn’t seriously feel threatened. He watched for any surveillance on himself or on his visitors and found none. He stood to greet them as they reached his table.

“Gentlemen, please sit,” Eric said shaking their hands as if this were a normal meeting. Both men looked taken aback but did sit. “Kanarion... yes I know it’s not your real name. You were supposed to introduce me to a certain someone. Mister Zhang here doesn’t fit the bill.”

Kanarion’s face darkened.

“If you think I’m paying you fifty thousand for this meeting,” Eric went on. “You’re stupider than you look.”

“You!” Kanarion began in a rage, but his companion stopped him from leaping up with a hand on his shoulder. Kanarion sat back fully and hissed the words, “If you try to screw me, you won’t live to regret it.”

Eric grinned nastily at the blustering man. His targeting reticule pulsed redly, spinning and centred on his forehead right between the eyes. Kanarion was only a thought away from death; his companion too. Zhang was more sensible. He had moved a little apart from his friend after his initial instinct to restrain Kanarion. A quick assessing look was all Eric needed to assure himself they were both unarmed.

Eric leaned forward. “You had a job to do. You didn’t do it. Why should I not just walk away? Oh, and by the way, threaten me again and I will shut your mouth for you. Permanently.” Eric let Kanarion see a glimpse of the Raytheon under his arm, and smiled when he looked away. “No answer?”

“If I may?” Zhang said. “He can’t help you, but he knew I could. He hasn’t failed.”

Eric sat back and regarded Zhang thoughtfully. He kept both men targeted, but had his sensors do a sweep looking for anything interesting. A wire frame representation of both men flashed up onto his display as the sweep commenced. A few seconds later a couple of places flashed amber on the models, but none red. A query showed Kanarion was carrying a wand, but although its carrier wave showed it was active for incoming comms, it wasn’t in use. Zhang had a number of devices in his pockets. An inactive wand was one, the other two might be minicomps of some kind, but neither device was recording or active in any other way. Both men’s wristcomps were active of course, but unlike Eric’s military issue, they had no ability to broadcast.

Eric dismissed the sweep’s results to concentrate on Zhang.

“... knows to keep silent. If you agree?”

Eric quickly reviewed his log of the last few seconds, and nodded slowly as if thinking it over. Zhang had proposed paying Kanarion off so that they could get down to business.

“And you guarantee his silence?”

Zhang nodded. “He is my sister’s husband.”

Eric grinned, Zhang didn’t sound happy about that. Eric wouldn’t have been either. “Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll pay him twenty five thousand—”

Kanarion cursed.

Zhang whirled toward his brother-in-law. “Keep silent fool!” He turned back to Eric. “Go on.”

“Twenty five thousand for him as payment for this intro, and he goes away. He doesn’t talk about this and you guarantee it. Then, if you complete his job as you say you can, I’ll pay you another twenty five thousand and you can give it to him or keep it yourself. I don’t care which.” Zhang began to agree but Eric held up a finger and pointed at Kanarion who was looking incensed. “Make me believe you can control him.”

Zhang turned to his brother-in-law. “You were always a disappointment to my family,” he began and Kanarion’s face darkened. “But this time you accidently did something right by calling me. Don’t ruin it. I swear I will give you the twenty five thousand. On my honour. You know my word is good.”

Kanarion nodded reluctantly.

“I know you think me a fool for keeping to the old ways, but remember this: keeping my word is not the only tradition I uphold. Vendetta is another. I swear if you speak a word of this, my sister will be a widow the next day. Do you understand?”

Eric blinked. Zhang didn’t sound angry or upset. His heartbeat and other stats were unchanged, but Eric believed every word he’d said. Going by expression, Kanarion did as well. The suddenly scared man nodded jerkily.

“Good,” Zhang said and turned back to Eric. “Satisfied?”

Eric counted out twenty-five platinum wafers as his answer and slid them toward Kanarion. The greedy man’s hand darted out and made them disappear, his eyes glowing with excitement.

“Good bye, Kanarion. We won’t meet again... we better not,” Eric said evenly.

Kanarion stood and walked quickly away. Eric kept him tagged on sensors but left it to his processor to alert him should the man change his mind and return or do something else interesting. Meanwhile, Zhang had to be dealt with. He slid the remaining wafers of platinum to Zhang and the man pocketed them without counting them.

“I don’t envy you,” Eric said mildly.

Zhang grimaced. “My sister loves him and I love my sister. It would hurt her should I have to make good on my threat, but sometimes I think a little accident and a quick funeral for him would be better for her in the long run.”

“Kids?”

Zhang shuddered. “No thank god, but she wants them. I must decide soon.”

Eric pursed his lips, but then he nodded. This so-called businessman would be called something else on other worlds he had visited. Something a little more sinister. Crime boss sounded a little old fashioned and the image it conjured was a cliché, but that’s what Eric was getting from Zhang’s demeanour and conversation with his brother-in-law. Eric remembered thinking about Thurston’s future when he first arrived, and how the station stood guard against crime, but it was obviously already here dirtside. And that was a problem of another sort. Why hadn’t his searches found Zhang’s shadier dealings? His digging still hadn’t found anything of the sort.

Computer: Narrow search to Yi Zhang’s immediate family. Include financials. Query: Is there any evidence of Freedom Movement affiliation and/or sympathies?

>_ Working

Eric decided to probe a little while his processor deepened its search into Zhang’s family.

“You said he did the right thing by getting you involved. Why?”

“Because I can do what he cannot. You are not the first mercenary I have hired on behalf of my... of friends,” Zhang said.