Pita retraced her steps and found an unlocked door. She reached in and groped for a light pad. Palming on the light, she saw that this was a washroom. The fixtures were old and stained, but when she tried the taps she found that they still worked. She shut them off quickly; the running water made a hollow, groaning sound in the pipes.
Pita smiled at her discovery. All she had to do to avoid detection was time her uses of the washroom to coincide with shoppers’ visits to the bathroom in the store above. The water that rushed down through the connecting pipes would hide any noise.
In the meantime, she could stay here. There was a Growlie Gourmet and a Stuffer Shack just down the block. She ought to be able to boost a few snacks from the latter, and if she timed her visits to the dumpster behind the restaurant right, she’d be able to snag the kitchen scraps before they went bad. She wondered what time it was, and tried to remember when she’d last had a decent meal. She was pretty fragging hungry. And despite her sleep, she felt jangly and weird. She could tell herself over and over again that she was safe now, that she had found a place of refuge from the two goons who’d jumped her. But she still felt tense and on edge.
Something soft rubbed against Pita’s ankles. She jumped, then realized it was only the cat. She picked it up and stroked its head, listening to its rumbling purr. If the cat had escaped the fire, perhaps Aziz had, too. And if he was still in the city, maybe he could help her, could put her in touch with a shaman who could tell her if she really did have any magical talent. Running the type of shop that he did, Aziz must have known plenty of people who practiced magic.
There was just one problem. Aside from the shop- which now lay in ruins-Pita had no idea where to find Aziz. He might be listed in the city directory, but she doubted if he’d just be sitting at home, waiting for the yakuza to come and get him, No. it was fragging hopeless. She’d never find him.
Pita heard footsteps in the alley outside, and ducked as she saw someone walking past the grimy window. It was someone in suit pants, someone with expensive shoes. A yakuza? Her heart thudded in her chest until the footsteps had faded into the general traffic noise.
She held the cat close against her, stroking it with one trembling hand. The animal gave a soft mrrow and rubbed its cheek against her chin in response. Pita closed her eyes and nuzzled against its soft fur. She’d wait until later to venture outside, until there weren’t so many people on the streets. She’d just have to ignore the rumbling in her stomach and the dizzy feeling in her head. Her life was on the line here, and she didn’t want to risk it for a fragging Growlie Bar.
14
Carla sat at one of the data terminals in the KKRU newsroom, scanning the files the computer had flagged for her. She’d set it to automatically download anything to do with Mitsuhama, and in just one day the file was already enormous. She tapped the icon at the bottom of the screen, rapidly flipping through the articles. It looked like nothing but noise-PR blurbs about corp executive appointments, announcements about the openings of new plants in Osaka and London, business articles analyzing MCT stock performance, a ridiculous “consumer bulletin” on a customer who claimed that his MCT neural interface was the cause of his marital problems, puff pieces on a new robotic mini-drone that the company had developed, a story about CEO Toshiro Mitsuhama taking tea with the crown prince of Japan…
Carla sighed. Going through all this drek made her eyes ache. Maybe she should limit the search to articles with a Seattle dateline.
She leaned back in her chair, glancing toward Greer’s office. Officially, her Mitsuhama story was dead, spiked. But that didn't prevent her from trying, in her spare moments, to pick up a lead that would bring the story back on line again. She wasn’t getting anywhere, however, with this passive search. Maybe it was time for her investigation to take a more active direction.
Officially, she was working today on a story about the Matrix. A number of system access nodes in the Seattle telecommunications grid had been experiencing problems over the past few days. Names were getting scrambled, passcodes and retinal scans weren’t being recognized, and Matrix traffic had to be rerouted through alternative servers. Elsewhere in the Matrix, entire systems had shut down; one of the most recent casualties was the one serving the theological college at the University of Washington. The telecom providers were scrambling to assure their customers that all was well, that this was a minor, localized problem. But the systems experts Carla had contacted that morning were speculating that a powerful new virus was on the loose. The more nervous among them had drawn comparisons to the Crash of 2029, which had started in a similar fashion.
That had been a great interview, one destined to put the fear into deckers everywhere when it aired at six o’clock. But it was pure speculation. When you boiled it right down to the facts, the story didn’t really have much bite to it. Who really cared if the datastores of an obscure university department were hopelessly corrupted? Carla had to admit that the eventual crash of the theology department’s computer system made for some great puns about the virus being an “act of God.” The deckers had even come up with a cute name for the virus: Holy Ghost. It had also struck the databanks of a televangelist network in Denver.
Carla had managed to inject some life into the story by including a take from the interview she’d done with a woman who seemed to draw the virus to her like a magnet. No matter which computer Luci Ferraro logged on from, the virus found her. She’d burned out her own telecom, six public terminals, and the one at the dental office where she worked as a receptionist. The interview had been great comic relief, especially Luci’s comment that her son had locked her out of his room to prevent her from touching his hologame set. It gave the story just the edge it needed to become the lead piece in tonight’s Metro news slot. It was just as well. The only other news item of note was yet another demand by the Ork Rights Committee to meet with the governor. That one was stale a week ago.
Carla wound her way through the busy newsroom, heading for the station’s research department. It was a room next to the studio, removed from the noise and bustle, that contained a Formfit recliner and a fully equipped kitchen. A private washroom, off to one side, ensured that the researchers didn’t need to waste precious seconds waiting for the restroom, like everyone else.
The three young deckers who made up this “department” were technically on call at all times for the reporters, but typically only one hung out here “in the meat,” playing simsense games or writing utility programs to pass the time. The other two clocked in from remote work stations at home.
Today the decker on duty was Corwin Schofeld, a young ork barely out of his teens. In person he looked big, slow, and stupid. But Carla knew that, inside the Matrix, his persona was as quick and slippery as they came.
Corwin looked up as Carla entered the room. He was just preparing to jack in, and sat with his deck across his legs, a datacord snugged into his temple. “Hoi, there, Carla,” he said with a big smile. “How’s it scannin’, snoop? Wus’up?”