Tails You Lose (2 page)
As the kids below steadied themselves, a girl at the top of the pyramid sprang into the air. She landed in a handstand and then lifted her right hand to wave while balancing on her left. Then there was a flicker, and the girl appeared back on top of the human pyramid as the holopic cycled back to the beginning again.
The image had been captured more than two decades ago, on Alma's eighth birthday—one month before Aaron's death. Two months after that, the project was shut down, and the corporation that had given birth to the Superkids was torn apart.
Alma
's body was still as athletic as ever under the black tights and red silk kimono she wore while relaxing at home, but her face had grown leaner since childhood. Straight, shoulder-length hair cut in blunt bangs framed Eurasian features. Her cybereyes were natural-tint models with brown irises, and the augmentations to her hearing had been done without removing or altering her natural ears. Her softlink chipjack was hidden at the nape of her neck. The rest of her cyberware and bionetic augmentations lay deep under her skin. In her line of work, it didn't pay to advertise advantages. Surprise was too effective a weapon.
When Tiger Cat called back, she took a moment to center herself and then greeted him with a simple hello. Then she punched the credit transfer's authorization number into her cellphone. She heard the faint
beep-beep-beep
of numbers being keyed into a cred machine. Tiger Cat thanked her with a purr in his voice.
"I managed to find out what happened to the 'package' that went missing," he said. "It's being shipped to Hong Kong by Swift Wind Cargo aboard the
Plum
Blossom
. The ship is loading this morning at Vanterm 5. It's a short turnaround; she's due to sail at 4:40 this afternoon."
"Will the package be going on board with the crew?" Alma asked.
"No—as cargo. It's sealed inside a container." Alma blinked. Sealed inside a container? That was alarming news. An ocean crossing would take a week, at least—longer if the ship was delayed by a storm. Container ships didn't have insulated holds.
"Won't the package . . ." She searched for a way to say it obliquely but couldn't find a word that would convey her worries adequately. She opted instead to be blunt. "How will the package manage to stay alive?"
She heard a faint chuckle before Tiger Cat answered. Unlikely as it was that anyone was listening in on their conversation, he stuck to the prearranged code. "The integrity of the package won't be compromised. It's being shipped inside a specialized stabilization unit—the type hospitals use when a transplant patient has to be put on ice for several days when a vat-grown organ isn't immediately available. Don't worry—the folks who have your package are making sure that it's handled properly."
Alma
nodded to herself. No wonder Gray Squirrel hadn't been spotted anywhere in the three days since his extraction. He was on ice—literally. At least he was still alive.
"Where's the container now?"
"It was loaded on a truck this morning. It's probably already at the terminal."
"What about the four individuals I inquired about?" Alma asked. "Were the stills I provided from the securicams any help?"
"I recognized one of the faces: the male with the prominent teeth. He's a local runner by the name of Wharf Rat. He's heavily involved in smuggling—he's got a network of contacts along the waterfront. Grabbing your package was a bit out of character for him, but I suppose he got the job because he knows whose palms to oil at the shipping companies. Someone had to turn a blind eye when an extra piece of cargo the size of a coffin was stuffed inside the container.
"Two of the other runners were just low-grade muscle that Wharf Rat hired off the street—none of my connections even knew their names. They haven't been seen locally; it looks as though they've left town. I wasn't able to find anything at all on the fourth person."
"I didn't expect you to," Alma conceded. "Her digi-pic didn't give you much to go on. Where is Wharf Rat now?"
Tiger Cat's cartoon image shrugged. "Nobody knows. He's disappeared."
"What about the people who hired him?"
"I located someone who's cozy with Wharf Rat, and she says the client was a typical Mr. Johnson. Untraceable—end of story. Should I keep digging?"
Alma
frowned. Part of her job was to find out which of Pacific Cybernetics' competitors had hired the shadowrunners, but for now the important thing was getting the "package" back.
"I'll let you know," she told Tiger Cat. "Do you have anything else for me?"
The cartoon shook its head. "That's it. When can I expect the second payment?"
"When the package has been recovered."
"Can I call you back tonight?"
"Tomorrow," she said firmly.
"Agreed."
Alma
thumbed the cellphone's disconnect icon and was just about to close the phone when she spotted a text message scrolling across the monitor. She read only part of it—HI AL. HOW'S YOUR DAY GOING? HAVE YOU FIGURED OUT WHO I AM YET—before angrily erasing the rest.
For the past three months, some crank caller who had gotten her cellphone number had been hacking their way into the phone's daytimer memo function and leaving annoying messages. Alma had tried blocking the incoming calls, but without success—the caller must have used a different jackpoint each time. She'd even switched the cellphone's number—twice. The crank messages were especially annoying now, when she needed to keep the phone clear for Tiger Cat's calls.
Alma
snapped the phone closed, set it down on the counter, and consulted her retinal clock. In seven hours and fifty-six minutes, the
Plum
Blossom
would sail. Swift Wind was a large shipping firm; it would have hundreds of containers on the pier. In order to search them quickly and unobtrusively, Alma would need someone with astral capability. She'd also need technical support and a vehicle big enough to carry the stabilization unit out of the terminal, once it was located.
First and foremost on the long list of preparations, however, was the I Ching; the casting that Tiger Cat's call had interrupted was only half complete. She picked up the coins and listened to them clink together as she shook them in her cupped hands.
The coins and a text-based copy of the
Book
of
Changes
had been a gift to Alma on her twelfth birthday, from the couple who had fostered her after the Superkid creche was broken apart. The coins dated from the mid-19th century but were not particularly valuable. Alma had considered them no more than curiosities that were fun to play with, until the day they predicted the deaths of those foster parents in a suborbital crash, back when she was seventeen. She'd consulted the I Ching every day since then and had committed each of the sixty-four hexagrams to memory.
About a year ago, Alma had the coins tested by a talismonger to see if they were magically active. He'd confirmed that the coins were exactly what they appeared to be: ordinary coins. Even so, their prophecies were unerringly accurate. More than once, the warnings they had given her had prevented her from making a terrible mistake.
Alma
held the coins over the counter, deliberately stilling the anxious voice that insisted she immediately rush out and find Gray Squirrel. She shook the coins and let them fall, studied the result, and then repeated the process twice more. Each time, two coins landed face up and one face down: fixed yang. The trigram for sky.
She pondered the result: sky over thunder—the hexagram Fidelity. She could recite the overall judgment by heart:
Strength
comes
from
outside
and
guides
those
who
are
loyal
from
within
.
Although
those
whose
fidelity
is
true
are
blameless
,
fidelity
alone
does
not
guarantee
success
.
Those
who
deny
what
is
true
will
not
benefit
from
their
actions
.
It was an odd prophecy, considering the task that lay before her today. Did it mean that her own fidelity to her corporation would give her the strength she needed to succeed? Or had she overlooked some truth, and was failure thus indicated?
The reference to fidelity could apply equally to herself or to Gray Squirrel—the "package" that was being shipped to Hong Kong this afternoon. She knew the researcher well enough to be certain that he was innocent of any collusion in his extraction. He was as loyal to PCI as she was. Gray Squirrel and Alma had become good friends over the years that both had been working for the corporation, and they had grown even closer after Alma had volunteered to beta-test the REM inducer.
Their lives shared many parallels. Both had been separated from their families at an early age: Alma at the age of eight when the Superkids project was shut down and she was sent halfway across the continent to live with strangers in Salish-Shidhe; Gray Squirrel at ten when his parents sent him to live with an uncle in Aztlan in a misguided attempt to toughen him up. Both had been ostracized by the other children at their schools when they refused to hide their superior prowess and intellect. Alma's cybernetics made her an oddity at the "back to basics" boarding school she was sent to—a school that didn't even have Matrix access. Gray Squirrel's keen intelligence and passion for science and math set him apart from the fitness-obsessed trainees at the paramilitary
Each of them had found that something at Pacific Cybernetics. Surrounded by peers who respected their talents, each had risen swiftly through the ranks. They were part of a group of dedicated professionals who spent more time together, sharing triumphs and struggles, than most families.
For Alma, the rise to the top of PCI's counterextractions department had been a smooth one, but for Gray Squirrel, his success in the research and development division was a mixed blessing. More than once, he had confided to Alma the problems he was having at home. His wife just didn't understand the importance of his lengthy business trips to the PCI labs in the Philippines and was irritated by his round-the-clock research. He'd already compromised by always knocking off promptly at 11 p.m., no matter how engrossing the research was, and coming straight home, but still she complained.
Alma
had reassured Gray Squirrel that a corporation was also a family—one that made equally valid demands on his time. And it was a family he could count on. Relationships had only two people to keep them going, and they often failed, but a corporation was sustained by hundreds or even thousands of employees. If one faltered, the others would be there to ensure its survival.
Unless, of course, the corporate family was deliberately torn apart by the UCAS judicial system and scattered to the winds—as her first one had been.
Gray Squirrel was one of the top researchers in Pacific Cybernetics' R&D lab. He was the driving force behind the REM inducer, one of PCI's most cutting-edge projects, which was certain to push the Vancouver-based company into the corporate big leagues once it was released. For that reason, Alma had been keeping an eye on him. She'd been prepared for an extraction attempt once the project's beta-testing was complete and the REM inducer was officially announced.
She hadn't expected it to come so soon. The suddenness of Gray Squirrel's extraction—and its meticulous execution—had taken her completely by surprise. Even the I Ching had not warned of it.
Perhaps today's message would become clearer as the day progressed. The first line of the hexagram had been changing yang; the second two were both changing yin. At some point in the next twenty-four hours the situation would change as yang became yin and yin became yang. A different hexagram would emerge: Meeting.
Alma
hoped that this change would be for the better—that the "meeting" referred to would be the result of her successful recovery of Gray Squirrel. But as always, the I Ching was silent on the specifics. The coins could provide guidance, but it was Alma's own actions that would ultimately determine how the day would unfold.
* * *
Alma
stood in front of the Heroes' Totems on