| From: | jaimie.nicholson@********.otago.ac.nz (Jaimie Nicholson) |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Report on Gibraltar, part two (if all goes well) |
| Date: | Fri, 4 Oct 1996 11:49:40 +1100 |
"No reason for a fight.... What do you want?" asks Jerzyck.
"Ratekov," Mercer answers, "I'll hand you back to your bodyguards tomorrow,
but Ratekov goes down the hill tonight, to a Yamatetsu transport flight
leaving in thirty minutes. I'll have to ask you to disable his cortex bomb,
or whatever precautions you have taken to render his escape impossible."
"I can't do that," replies the camera-man, "and I do mean that literally.
On the other hand, I can pay you double what the Yamatetsu people have
offered."
He risks taking a quick glance around and out of the corner of his eye, you
notice a slight glimmer on the level above, before his eyes fall back on
Mercer.
"Come now, Mr Jerzyck, don't be difficult. I _belong_ to Yamatetsu. In
fact, the entire Renraku contingent is from Yamatetsu. Renraku chose not to
come to the conference this year, and you would not believe how much it
cost us to replace their team with ours. Shiawase know, and I suspect some
of the Aztechnology contingent are on to us. But your sad excuse for a
chain of corner dairies? No, Mr Jerzyzk, Sadder-Krupp remains, as usual, in
the dark. Now, let us go to wherever you are holding the boy."
"Take him now," says Jerzyck.
For an instant Mercer looks uncomprehending, then, realising Jerzyck was
calling for backup, he fires at the camera. A spitting noise comes from his
cyber-weapon as a spray of gas exits the palm-hole, and Jerzyck shouts in
pain as he goes over backwards. From the ground, the camera observes the
Yamametsu man step forward readying another burst with a faint look of
surprise towards his still breathing quarry. As the cyber-arm is raised the
earlier shimmer moves off the railing and a loud kiai attracts Mercer's
attention skyward. Before his hand can raise high enough to block or shoot,
the blur connects with his shoulder, sending him spinning backwards, his
arm smashing hard into the rail. Conversely, what must be assumed to be
WhiteTyger's form lands safely. Mercer's arm slashes out in an arc, his
palm open, causing the cloaked form to commit to a diving roll, but no
bullets spray from the cybergun.
"Damn..." Mercer swears, his other fist coming down on the rail with a blow
that dents it. "I guess I'll have to rip you two apart with my bare hands."
The faintly shimmering form pauses for less than a second before he and
Mercer seem to switch into high gear trading a series of blows and blocks
at dizzying speed. WhiteTyger seeming to keep himself just out of reach of
Mercer connecting, while his strikes causing Mercer to do little more than
shake out his head. Finally, Mercer's Muay-Thai leg block, known for its
brutality on both attacker and defender, brings a brief pause to the fight
as WhiteTyger's leg begins to show slightly, its faintly limping pattern
digitizing into and out of focus.
"I've been working Black Ops since I was a teenager," Mercer laughs at his
mostly unseen opponent. "You're going to have to do better than that...."
WhiteTyger stands his ground. Taking his delay as a chance to finally move
in, Mercer leaps. What must be the arms of Ice's ally blur into motion,
avoiding Mercer's strike and rending a bloody track from Mercer's abdomen
to his chest. The surprise and pain this brings render Mercer unable to
shield himself from the strikes that finally knock him to the ground
motionless. WhiteTyger's body finally becoming fully visible as being
covered in a dark grey cloth, he pulls off his hood and yanks the mask and
goggles of what appears to be a stealth suit off his face. His large
cat-slit eyes are wide with rage. Moving through a few rapid motions of
some form, he draws back his fist.
"Alive," gasps Jerzyck, in some pain judging by the sound of his voice.
WhiteTyger looks up, and the anger quickly leaves his face. His fist
closes, and he instead kneels next to Mercer and clasps hands on either
side of the Yamametsu agent's neck. Waiting for another half minute, he
then releases his hold and drops Mercer's head to the ground with a
quasi-metallic thunk.
"He is not faking," Whitetyger says, "What about you?"
"I should live," Jerzyck gasps, "thanks to L's ever so wiz high tech
armour. I'm holding a healing spell now, it'll take a while to work."
"Thank you for helping me keep my head, but what about him?" the Eurasian
asks getting up with a slight limp. "I can heal this myself."
"Let him sleep it off, I guess," replies Ice, "We can't kill him, someone
would notice. Damn it, he knows we're not execs, that's for sure. And Yamu
must know about the blackmail attempt. Frag it!" The camera jerks as
Jerzyck rises to his feet. "Right, that's done," he says, his voice
stronger now, "But what the hell do we do with Mercer?"
"He won't tell the other corps about us..." reasons Whitetyger, going
through some meditative motions and placing his hands on either side of his
shin, "he has no reason to... but yes, he will probably tell the other
Yamametsu agents, and that means two teams to worry about. The Renraku
replacements are probably all Black Ops, too... Bevan has seen his stepson;
Willard should go down the hill tonight. We've done what we can..."
The rest of WhiteTyger's comments are cut from the recording.
+++++End footage
I didn't completely agree with some of the stuff he said, but Whitey had a
point. Thusly, we got Willard and his keeper the hell out. As we found out
later, Mercer was working directly for Bevan Ratekov, so the rest of Yamu
don't know. More about this in the footage of the final night virtual
party.
And the comment about the Renraku swap... seems to me a place at this
conference isn't worth the same thing as money... it's either worthless, or
more than anyone can afford. But maybe Yamu agreed to let Renraku have
their places last year... or next year. Something to think about, look over
the reports from last year, see if there's anything there that didn't make
sense at the time...
********************
Day 5 (Sunday)...
Spent the morning recovering from last night's fun and games. Played a bit
of chess and the like in the games room, got pretty much hammered, which
didn't do much for my ego. Still, the players were corp boys who I'd kill
in hand to hand, so we all have our strengths and weaknesses.
Blademaster and WhiteTyger held up our end of the mind games, and did some
more chatting. I think he distracted them enough to cover up for my injury
troubles.
Blackthorne spent the day in the matrix, I don't think he came up with
anything special though.
Evening, dancing and dinner with escorts... the dancing was good for
mingling. Goldmann danced with Easy, they made quite a hit, that guy can
move, and Easy was like lightning. Anyway, she says he was almost ready to
talk business, but wanted a little more time.
Shockwave talked to some of the escorts, got some pillow-talk type info,
but I don't know how valuable it is. Nothing on any of the mission-ops,
I've put it in the miscdata file.
********************
Day 6 (Monday)...
Meetings, meetings, and more fraggin' meetings. I hate this suit drek.
Virtual performance that night. Blackthorne rigged up a frame that imitated
me, and I went wandering. The rest of them covered for me in the virtual
viewing room. I found something that worried me a little, something to do
with the hotel itself, not the tasks you gave us. There are about four
stories below the hotel complex. None of the elevators went down that far,
and they weren't even mentioned in the tour thing. I didn't look any
further then, it didn't seem like it was my business. I mentioned it later
though, and Blademaster wanted to take a look. We decided to wait until
after the final night party.
********************
Day 7 (Tuesday)...
Meetings. Need I say more?
Party... wild... Not very suit-like at all... several indiscretions noted
among various exec contingents... included what I saw in the miscdata file.
I also got some footage that I might try to sell to one of those on-line
trash-news services, if you have no objections. "X-corp Chairman John Smith
in Three-in-a-Bed BTL-Sex Romp" sort of thing, probably nothing you can
use, but footage from inside an exclusive corp meeting like that'd be
priceless to the gutter press. Of course, if you don't want me to sell it,
just say so. You're paying enough to call the shots here.
T'Shon noticed the bodyguards from Yamatetsu were missing, and mentioned it
to me. Seemed strange, but what can one do? Alerted by that, he said he had
checked on the "Renraku" contingent, and half of them were missing too.
Mercer was still here though. Strange, but we didn't care, Ratekov was
already down the hill and gone.
I'll include a few of the more interesting pieces of footage from the
party, both virtual and real...
+++++Begin footage
Black screen, bearing the words "Blackthorne's Icon".
The screen blossoms with a chaotic view of a room full of light and dark
patches, and fastastic beings. The foregrouynd is lit well, and several
humanoid animals are dancing in the centre of an open space. In the
back-ground is a view of a galaxy or more of stars, winking on and off, and
shifting according to no recognisable pattern. A door at one end of the
dance area opens, and a burst of smoke and flame comes through.
When the cloud clears, a large red dragon stands just inside the doorway.
>From its size, it could not have enterred through that door in the real
world. It roars, and a burst of flame flows from its mouth, seperating into
a number of small fireballs that fly about the room, shooting at people's
heads and pulling up at the last moment. Some seem angry, several applaud,
and most can't seem to decide which way to jump.
+++++End footage
For the icon contest, there were three sections: general, flamboyant, and
abstract. Blackthorne won flamboyance, and I came second in general. Added
to Shockwave's first in abstract, that put SK at the top of the table for
the corporate icon contest. Does that get us a bonus?
+++++Begin footage
Black screen, bearing the words "Virtual party, Mercer killing Ice's
children. Also present, WhiteTyger and a miscellaneous escort."
Once again, the virtual party room unfolds onto the screen. There is a
large silver tiger in the foreground, facing the POV and talking to a
midnight-black woman with angelic wings. Standing back, but paying
attention, is a humanoid tiger in the robes of a monk of some sort. A small
swarm of (very cute) baby silver tigers is visible in the background,
chasing each other in circles. They stop as a waiter-robot glides past, and
all jump on it. Some curl about it's tracks, stopping it, others climb on
the drinks tray it carries. It beeps in electronic protest, and several
nearby icons laugh at its distress.
Then a demonic image comes to the waiter's rescue. It is taller than a
human, and its red hide is covered with tiny spikes. It scatters the baby
tigers with a gout of fire form its mouth, then turns to the larger tiger
with a sneer. The angel look disgusted, and the demon leers at her, then
walks around her in a close circle, looking her up and down.
"Very nice," he hisses, "But I think you should leave now, the... tiger and
I have... business to discusssss."
The angel departs, flying directly upwards with a flap of her wings and a
look of disapproval.
"Very friendly," says the tiger, sitting down on its haunches and licking
one paw, "Now what business do you have in mind?"
The demon replies with a snarl.
"I have a message from Bevan Ratekov," he says, and he doesn't sound happy
about the role of message-boy, "He will co-operate with the... requests,
and he agrees to the original proposal."
"Tell him forget it," says the tiger, looking directly into the demon's
eyes, "As a penalty for the attempt on myself and, through me, Ratekov
junior, Bevan will pay the agreed penalty twice. The exact circumstances of
his payment for the second installment will be arranged at our convenience.
And I recognise that you have no control over his response, so simply give
him the message."
The tiger turns it's back, and begins to recreate its children, weaving
them from sparky lines on the ground. The demon advances, anger plain on
it's face, but the tiger-monk steps forward, gripping a staff
threateningly. The demon backs off, raising it's hands in placation, and
leaves a short-lived pixelating after-image as it's human counterpart jacks
out.
+++++End footage
I hope that didn't mess with your plans too much. It sounded almost like I
knew what I was talking about, and if Bevan cares enough to mess with his
corp twice (once as per the agreement, and again by using Mercer without
saying why), why not a third time?
+++++Begin footage
Black screen, bearing the words "The message-drop, Ice's cybercamera. Easy,
Goldmann".
This time the view opens on the real world, in a large ballroom. Visible in
the back-ground are a number of tortoise booths, about half are occupied.
At one side of the POV stands a tall elven woman, Easy, at the other is a
middle-aged human male. Between the two of them and the camera, they form
an equilateral triangle. All hold drinks, and they are chatting about the
icons in the virtual party.
"I loved your little tigers," says Easy, looking at the camera.
"I always had the feeling they were looking over my shoulder," says the
middle-aged man, looking hard at the elf woman.
"Well," she says, with barely a moment's hesitation, "they aren't
now."
"Then would you like to dance again?" the man asks, taking her in his arms.
The camera catches him slipping a chip-case down past the cuff of her long
black glove, but real eyes wouldn't have spotted it. The elf laughs and
waves to the camera as she is led away, but her smile does not make a dent
against the triumphant look in her eyes.
+++++End footage
So, as you see, Goldmann dropped a message with Easy. We didn't read it,
figured it wasn't for our eyes. But he looked to me like he'd made a
definite decision, and it was probably your way from the paranoid reference
to people watching him.
