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Part nine: "Hide and seek"

Article: 1263 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo
Subject: Silk and Steel 9
Date: 7 Mar 93 04:26:24 GMT
Lines: 510
 
Silk and Steel, Part nine: "Hide and seek"
Copyright March 1993 by Jay B. Brandt, all rights reserved
 
--------------------------------------------------------------
When the Danny opened the satchel, Argus took full control of the
rat-shaped rigger remote in the bag and commanded it to leap right into
Danny's face. The ronin yelled and jumped back, off balance for a moment.
Argus was now fully immersed in the rat-remote's sensory net. He was
experiencing what happened to the remote as if it was his own body. As soon
as he hit the floor, he spun about, oriented on a partially opened door
that looked like it might lead to the main hall, and ran at top speed out
of the room. The hallway was empty, with several closed office doors down
each side, and a suspended ceiling overhead. He extended 'his' claws on the
run, turned sharply to the left, and ran right up the wall at the nearest
end of the hallway. Eventually someone might notice the staggered row of
small, clustered puncture marks he had left in the wall, but that couldn't
be helped. Right now he had to get the remote out of sight. When he reached
the ceiling, he shoved a panel out of the way with the head of the remote,
and rapidly crawled into the void above the hallway. By the time Danny
looked out into the hall, Argus had already shoved the mis-aligned panel
back into place.
 
He took a look around on infrared. Aside from the usual grid of metal
strips and hangar wires supporting the ceiling tiles, he could see several
light fixtures, which were radiating enough infrared to brightly illuminate
the ceiling void. Several vent ducts crossed the space or ran down its
length. There were also a few clusters of cables, possibly computer network
wiring or the wiring for the vidphone system, or both. Still plenty of room
for the remote to maneuver. 
 
The partition walls on either side, separating the offices from the
hallway, were open stamped-metal studs, with no wallboard except at the
bottom few inches above the ceiling grid. Argus chuckled to himself. It was
illegal to short the walls like that. It created quite a fire hazard. But
it was a really common way for an unscrupulous contractor to shave the
costs on a building job. The building inspector who signed off on this
place probably got a cut of the contractors skim money to overlook it.
Argus had found a lot of commercial complexes built like this, and it meant
he could get into damned near all the offices with his remote, just by
crawling the little unit through the ceiling spaces. That was the main
reason he had commissioned a set of this type of remotes from Skinny
Willie.
 
He crawled quietly across the tops of the ceiling tiles, back down the
hallway. The rat-remote still had the computer disk in its mouth. Pausing
where a vent duct entered the hallway overhead space, he slipped the disk
between the vent and the tile below it. If anyone caught the remote, he
didn't want them to get the disk as well. He could retrieve the disk later
if all went well. He continued down the hall and entered the space over the
office he had just run from. The remote got there just in time to catch the
end of Danny's ill-fated interview with this 'Mr. Makoto'. 
 
Argus had guessed this Makoto person was another of the Yakuza Oyabun who
formed the 'Dark Brotherhood', the council of Yakuza leaders that ran
operations in Seattle. After all, except for Aki, Shadowcat and Argus
himself, only the Dark Brotherhood council members should have been aware
of last night's meeting and assassination attempt. He heard the Japanese
crime lord order Danny's 'disposal' and guessed Makoto must have believed
the faked note from Aki that Argus had planted in the satchel, implicating
Danny in the plot to kill several members of the Dark Brotherhood.
 
There was the sound of a scuffle in the next office, ending in a loud
gunshot. A moment later, a woman's voice spoke in English in the office
below. "Well, Oyabun, Danny's made his last mistake. Your people will have
the mess outside cleaned up in a few minutes. Am I correct in assuming he
bungled this assignment too? With all respect honored sir, it seems that
you will need more than your usual street muscle to ferret out Aki and his
operatives. Give me the chance sir. I won't let you down."
 
The crime lord replied a moment later. "No, not yet. You will do what I
hired you to do. You will remain with me as my protection. Your advice last
night enabled me to escape Aki's trap. You did well to suggest sending one
of my kobun in my place. For that you shall receive a most generous bonus.
Three of my associates died last night for lack of such foresight. I have
no wish to join them. No, I do not wish to lose your protection at this
time."
 
"Very well Oyabun. I shall return to my post." There was a sound of a door
closing, as the mercenary left the room.
 
Argus considered this exchange. "So, Makoto was the only survivor of Aki's
trap last night. Apparently because he's hired some special talent. Well, I
think I will just leave that remote in place. It may prove useful later."
He powered down the remote to standby mode to reduce the chance of
detection, and broke off the connection.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Detective Isbell? I think I've found some interesting evidence for you."
Susan Isbell turned to face the voice, and walked over to the forensics
expert that had called out to her. "OK Marston, what do you have?" 
 
He had a rather smug grin on his face. "Look in the foot well of the front
seat. What do you see?" She looked into the burned car, next to the dead
gunman. Most of the trunk area had been badly damaged when the gas tank
blew up. The back window was blown out, and the back seat had caught fire.
But the rest of the interior was mostly intact. On the floor in front of
the front seat there were three sets of industrial sound-deadening
earmuffs, and a transmitter of the type commonly used with RC models. She
nodded. "Ear protectors and an RC rig. Possibly interesting, but no
definite link with the crime, so far. So, I suppose you have a connection
for me?"
 
Marston grinned self consciously. "Well hey, I figure we got four explosive
devices went off back there near the van. Haven't found any fragments yet,
and I'll bet we don't find much either, other than pieces of the
detonators. The scorch marks on the walls near the van are pretty
characteristic of flash-bangs. Stunners, y'know? Cardboard cased charges
designed to make a lot of light and noise, but not to kill the victims.
There were some charred pieces of plastic and a circuit chip near one of
the scorches. I'm having it analyzed, but it's probably our detonator. My
guess is whoever set off those damned things did it from here, with that RC
controller. Same RC actuator unit that will make a hovercraft model turn
can be used to trigger a chemical fuse, and the parts are nearly impossible
to trace. As for the muffs, I'd say there were three people here, prepared
for a -very- loud surprise party. We'll bag the muffs and transmitter and
send them to the lab, and of course we'll go over this car for other
evidence."
 
He walked back to the rear of the car. "Now look at this guy. I'd guess
this was one of the three people in this vehicle. Hopefully he's not too
badly burned for the lab to get some prints or other forensic evidence off
him to confirm weather or not he was inside the car. I poked his jacket to
one side to check him out. He's wearing a -big- shoulder holster under his
coat, and appears to have been packing an autopistol, presumably the one
there on the ground next to him. It appears that he was killed by a single
blast from a shotgun, and the fire from the burning car finished the job.
The shot came in really low, like it was fired from ground level, and
apparently caught the car's fuel tank as well, causing the fire. From the
position of the wounds and his body, I'd guess he was crouching low behind
the car when he bought it. Caught most of it right in the crotch. Nasty way
to go. The fire and explosion would have been a blessing. Angle of fire
puts the shooter somewhere over that way. So far though, we haven't found
any spent brass from a shotgun, or the gun itself, anywhere in the parking
garage."
 
They walked back to the van. "We found three more handguns just like the
one the guy back there had. Two were on the roof near the access door,
fully loaded. The third was near the top of the elevator shaft, and was
empty. No serial numbers on any of them, of course. We found a bunch of
ejected brass that looks likely to be from that type of pistol, mostly here
at the van and a few back there near the burned car. And in addition to the
handgun brass, we also found about a dozen expended rifle shells in or near
the van. No sign of that rifle yet."
 
Susan considered that a minute. "Hmmm. Two loaded guns ditched on the roof,
and we had two Japanese 'businessmen' who 'just happened' to be here when
this went down. I think I may want to have a little chat those two later.
Go on."
 
"Now this van was pretty badly shot up. I figure first somebody stopped it
with the flash-bangs, then attacked while the person or persons in the van
were stunned. The lock on the side door was shot off, and somebody killed
the driver. The driver is wearing a shoulder rig himself, but there's no
sign of his gun. Probably it's the other one we found on the roof. Then
there's a computer deck and some sort of control console that were here in
the van, which have both been shot to hell. On top of -that-, somebody
torched the damned thing. We found a burnt match on the ground near the
back of the van, in a scorch mark left by burning fuel."
 
Detective Isbell looked it all over, then asked a few questions of her own.
"OK. I'll buy most of that. But if someone went to the trouble to stun the
driver with flash-bangs, why shoot him? If they just wanted to kill him,
why not just blow him and the van to hell in the first place? There has to
be something else they wanted in this van. Maybe a passenger. Maybe
something to do with this electronic gear that got shot up. And we had
reports of a blonde, female terrorist that was supposedly responsible for
this, and who apparently came in with the driver of this van. Where does
she fit in? And where the hell is she now?"
 
She walked around the van, and looked back in through the drivers side
window. "Hey Marston, we got another little mystery. This van's only got
Rigger controls, right? No manuals installed, that I can see. So tell me
something. If this guy's the driver, where the hell's his Cyberlink?
Somebody wants that guy to be mistaken for the driver. For the moment, lets
keep that information between us, OK? I want to see what happens." 
--------------------------------------------------------------
Argus checked the information his deck had recorded while he was running
the remote. The two remotes he had recalled from the Chatsubo had arrived,
and were waiting out in the alley. Shadowcat's trace had stopped moving
once, for just a few minutes, and continued North. It was now in an
industrial district on the North end of the Sprawl. He quickly scanned the
audio recording from the minicams in Shadowcat's bag, and identified the
brief stop as a trip through a gas station and car wash. Possibly the
vehicle had intentionally been covered with dirt or a water soluble paint,
and running it through the car wash was intended to make tracking it
harder. There was a robbery a few months ago where they had used wash-off
paint on the getaway car. He activated the live audio again, and things
sounded pretty much the same. Car noises and radio music, with a call sign
from the same station he had heard before.
 
Argus felt he had waited long enough. He transferred the tracking link back
to his combat deck, connected via his cellular link to the Matrix, and he
headed out to rescue Shadowcat. The triangulated position of her
transmitters was now overlaid on a map chip display, visible as a pane in
his vision. The green on black grid of city streets had a slowly moving red
blip on it, indicating her current position. He sorted it off to the upper
left side, and brought up the rigger control window for the combat deck on
the upper right. Lower left and right were sensory feeds from the two
remotes in the alley. His 'normal' vision filled the center of what he
could see. He dropped the coveralls and painters cap from the parking
garage in an incinerator chute in the safe-room as he left. 
 
Once out in the alley, he sprinted down the center of the block, still
moving away from the parking garage. As he ran, he triggered a 'stay and
evade' subprogram in the two rat-remotes. They would now remain in that
area of the alley and act like 'normal' rats, staying out of sight and
avoiding capture if disturbed. When he reached the sidewalk, he oriented
himself, stepped into the now lighter flow of pedestrian traffic, and
slipped out again a few blocks later, into a small department store. There
he bought a light tan windbreaker to cover his black jacket, a matching
pair of tan slacks, and a small, dark gray backpack. He picked up a few
other small items, and paid for it all with an unpersonalized credstick.
Then he took a moment in the public restroom, to change, answer natures
call, and stow his black pants and his hat in the pack. A few minutes
later, he stepped back out into the store. His long hair was brushed down
to cover his Cyberlink. He now looked like any one of a thousand low-level
office workers on the street.
 
He walked back to the alley where he had left the rat remotes, deactivated
them, and placed them into the new backpack. Then he walked a quarter mile
to the nearest cycle shop, to get some new transportation. He got there
about 4:30 in the afternoon. The salesmen didn't pay much attention to him,
as it didn't look much like he could afford their line of bikes. That was
fine with Argus, as it let him check out the cycles on his own, and gave
them less reason to remember him. 
 
One of the cycles in particular caught his interest. It was the new
'Kurokinu San-zen', the Black Silk 3000. It had been highly touted as a
perfect commuter cycle. A powerful road bike, with shaft drive, active
suspension and cargo panniers standard, it also had another distinctive
feature -- dual drive-train systems. For long-haul, high speed or highway
use, it used a powerful turbine engine, capable of very impressive
acceleration. At speeds less than 50 KPH, you had the option of using a
very quiet, concentricly mounted induction-electric motor. Not only did the
induction-electric save on petrochem fuels, but it was nearly completely
silent, a big plus in crowded urban environments. Their floor display unit
was tricked out with -all- the options, including a rigger port and comm
set. It would be the perfect vehicle for this and other operations. It also
cost at least 20 times as much as he had on him in cash and credsticks. He
wasn't about to wrangle over financing and that crap. And he didn't have
any ID on him that he cared to have traced later. He'd have to rely on
other methods if he wanted that bike, or any other suitable vehicle, for
that matter. He noted the VIN # on the cycle, and the dealers ID codes, and
walked over to the display of used bikes and the accessories shelves.
 
After poking around for half an hour and selecting a pair of cycle helmets,
he finally decided to approach a salesman about a used Kurokinu 150
scooter. It was only 300 nuYen. He noted its ID data as well. He walked up
to the salesman just as the man was trying to lock up his office. He called
out to him in a low-sprawl dialect. "Scuse me sah? You da one ah buy da
bike from?"
 
The salesman turned with a tired and pained look on his face. He looked
Argus over disdainfully. "Sir, we are closing. The data terminals have
already been secured for the evening. If you come back tomorrow, I'm sure
someone will be glad to show you something in, er, your price range. The
girl at the cashier's office will take care of the small items you are
carrying." He turned away and tried to leave.
 
Argus took the man by the arm and guided him back to the office. "Naw. Lil
Suzy, she's mah girl, y'know? Wal ah tol her ahd buy er a bike for her
b-day, y'know? An thas today. Now ah know it's late, but ah gotta get it
now, right? It'll be no prob pal. Ah got creds 'n cash 'nuff to pay fer
it." He flashed a few high-value credsticks and a wad of currency at the
man. "We kin do it real quick-like. An deres a lil extra in it fer you too
if'n ya kin get it d'livered to her party t'nite. Cummon pal, we gotta
deal?"
 
The salesman looked around. "Well, I suppose -something- can be done. For a
consideration of course. Let me see if the manager is still here. I'll need
her override code to unlock the data terminals again." He unlocked the
office and gestured for Argus to have a seat.
 
As soon as the man left him alone, Argus took off his pack and fished out
one of the rigger rats. He placed it on a shelf behind the salesman's desk
where it could see the office terminal. Then Argus sat down and activated
the remote. From most of the room, the motionless remote was hidden in the
shadows, and would not be visible unless you were looking for it. But it
should have an unobstructed view of the keyboard and screen.
 
The salesman and his manager came back in, and the manager keyed in her
access code. Argus memorized the key sequence as he watched through the
eyes of the remote. The manager told the salesman "OK, make your sale and
log off again as soon as you can. I'll be in my office. There's a bit more
paperwork I can clear out while I wait. When you are done, come and get me,
and I'll approve it and secure the terminals again."
 
After she left, the salesman entered his access code, which Argus also
memorized. "Now then, which cycle were you going to buy, sir?" he said,
with a look of anticipation.
 
"Wal, ah guess tha 150 scooter'll keep er happy wit me. Dat one dere by da
goodies shelf. Got 400 Yen in credsticks right here fer tha scooter 'n two
hats." He tossed them on the desk, along with a datasheet from one of their
ad displays on which he had scrawled the dealer number for the scooter. "I
tink dats za number ya need, right?" Then he peeled off 150 nuYen in
currency and handed it to the man. "'N dats fer you pal."
 
The salesman's face fell somewhat as he realized the sale would be a small
one, but he smiled again as the cash came out. "I'll need your name, and an
address for delivery. I can e-mail one of our service techs to come in, to
get the order and deliver it. Um, it'll cost a bit for his time and trouble
as well. I'm sure you understand."
 
Argus chuckled, and peeled off another hundred nuYen note. "Dat doya?
Name's Bruce Donalson. Sen it to da Flyin' Fish rest-rant, on Thorndike 'n
Garfield. 'Bout 7 a can-do? Dats where ise gonna take her t'nite fer
dinner. Have 'em page me, 'n I'll come out 'n get it. Hokay?"
 
The man pocketed the bribes and entered the necessary information. Then he
logged off and locked the terminal. "All right. The transaction is queued
and ready for approval. I'll go get the manager to lock up."
 
As soon as the salesman walked out, Argus got up and retrieved his remote,
stuffing it back in his pack. He could only count on having a minute or two
to act, but that should be enough. He pulled a cable from his sleeve and
attached it to the terminal's access port. The other end went up his sleeve
to the combat deck in his jacket pocket. A second cable went from the deck
to his Cyberlink, hidden under his hair. He keyed in the salesman's access
code. As the system unlocked he slipped into the cyberspace of their
business construct to alter the sales record.
 
He found himself in a very simple and unimaginative construct, that looked
like a windowless office full of file cabinets, with a desk and several
marked in and out baskets for work in progress. His order was on top of the
send queue. There was also a large watchdog sitting in one corner of the
room. It looked at him, but saw only the salesman's matrix icon, so it just
sat there and watched him. When Argus reached for the order, the dog
growled. Apparently it was set to disallow altering orders after a certain
stage.
 
Argus entered the manager's code, changing his appearance in the construct
to match hers. The watchdog program blinked, wagged its tail, and laid
down, watching her with one eye as its head rested on its paws. It didn't
react when Argus took the order out of the queue this time. Argus swiftly
altered the order, replacing the ID numbers for the scooter with the ones
for the expensive 'Kurokinu San-zen' road bike. Then he changed the
transaction details so that the buyer of record was 'Akijiro Asamoto', and
the payment was to be a direct transfer of funds from the expense account
Aki had given him to use for renting the van that had been destroyed in the
parking garage. The dealership would still get their money, but it wouldn't
be traceable to Argus, and he wouldn't have to prove his ID. Besides, as
far as he was concerned, the damned bike was a legit expense for the
unfinished biz with Aki.
 
Argus returned the order to the queue, and checked the e-mail to the man
who was to deliver it. He changed the description of what was to be
ordered, and added a postscript from the manager that on-time delivery was
urgent, and confidentiality of the client's identity was to be maintained.
Then he reinserted that into the queue and sent both the order and the
e-mail memo, using the manager's authorization.
 
He checked the time. Fifteen seconds elapsed realtime. He swiftly made a
dummy order for the scooter and the original e-mail memo, and added a virus
code that would dissipate the fake order and memo rather than sending them.
When the manager entered her authorization, everything would appear to be
legit on the terminal. He jacked out, relocked the terminal with the
salesman's access code, and sat back down. Total elapsed time, 30 seconds.
It was so much easier to scam a corp system from one of their own
terminals, especially if you could filch the right access codes. Argus
hoped that when the irregularity was noticed the next morning, the salesman
and his manager would simply take the cash and creds paid for the scooter,
which they would still have, as a bribe to leave things alone. And if they
-did- try to follow up on it, they wouldn't get very far trying to track
down Aki.
 
The manager and salesman came back a few minutes later. They looked over
the order on the screen, and she approved it and sent it on its way,
locking the system again when she was done. "There, ah, Mr. Donaldson. Your
girlfriend's present will be delivered tonight. Now, we really must get
things locked up for the night. Sam here will show you out." Argus took the
helmets and his pack, and quickly left.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Two hours later, Argus was waiting in the lounge of the Flying Fish
restaurant and nightclub. The club was on the waterfront at the North shore
of Elliott Bay. The waterfront area itself was mostly industrial shipping
and warehouse space, but the hills behind it had some fairly nice
residential areas that offered a great view of the bay and the Seattle
metroplex at the center of the Sprawl. Shadowcat's trace had stopped moving
some time ago, and was now in an industrial sector on the shores of Lake
Washington, North of the decommissioned Sand Point Naval Station. Argus had
changed clothes again, back to his dark jeans and leather jacket. He had
taken the time for a quick meal, but had spent most of the time planning
how best to locate Shadowcat. Once he had the cycle, it would be easy for
him to get to the area where Shadowcat had stopped. His best chance would
be after dark, when his rat-remotes could move about unseen. That, coupled
with the report he had overheard indicating that Shadowcat was uninjured,
was the main reason he had delayed this long.
 
At about five minutes after seven, the voice of the cashier came over the
speaker system. "Mr. Donalson? Your party has arrived. Paging Mr. Bruce
Donalson. Your party is waiting at the front desk."
 
Argus looked out of the lounge into the lobby. There was a young man
standing there, holding a battered helmet in his hand. He seemed to be
alone. Argus activated one of the rat remotes that he had sent to the roof
earlier, and scanned the lot outside. Everything looked normal, and there
was a black Kurokinu San-zen cycle parked out front. It's engine still
quite warm, as he could see it glowing with the infrared enhancement
offered by his remote. 
 
He went to the lobby and tapped the man on the shoulder. "I believe you
have a cycle to deliver to me? I'm Donaldson. Mr. Asamoto said this was
were I was supposed to pick it up."
 
"Uh, right. Yeah, I got your bike outside, fully fueled and charged up.
Hope ya don't mind, but I drove it here. I didn't have time to arrange for
a transport truck, and the boss says I had to get it right to ya. It's a
real sweet ride, man." He fished out a small sheaf of papers and handed
them to Argus. "Just sign where I highlighted the papers, an it's all yours
man. Registrations your problem, but ya got thirty days to do that." 
 
Argus signed the papers, as 'Bruce C. Donaldson', and handed them back,
with a 50 nuYen credstick. "A little something for your cab fare home. I
assume everything else is in order?"
 
"Yes sir! Thank you sir! The bikes right out front. It's the only new cycle
out there. You can't miss it." He handed Argus the keys and his copies of
the papers, and headed for the door. Then he paused as he got to the
doorway and looked back. "Uh, hey, Mr. D., if you ever need any work done
on that bike, an it's after hours or whatever, well, just give me a call.
My card's with the papers there. I do good work, and I don't ask questions,
if ya get my drift." He grinned and walked out the door.
 
Using the remote on the roof, Argus watched the man as he left the lot.
When he got to the street, the service tech got into a battered car that
was waiting at the curb. He showed the credstick to the woman who was
driving, kissed her, and they sped off without a backwards glance.
 
Argus sent the remote over to the bike, and collected the two helmets he
had purchased earlier, as well as the backpack, which was now full of gear.
After walking out to the cycle, he jacked into its rigger port and ran a
full diagnostic. It was in perfect condition, and ready to use. He stowed
the second helmet in the rear storage cube, stuffed his hat and the tan
slacks and windbreaker into one of the panniers, and stuffed the rigger-rat
into the pack with its mate and the rest of the supplies he had purchased.
Then he hopped on the bike, started it up, and took off into the night.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Half an hour later, Argus was slowly riding through a neighborhood on the
shore of Lake Washington. According to the triangulated fix Argus had been
able to get from his combat deck, Shadowcat should be somewhere in the
complex that was over the next hill. He stopped the bike at the top of the
hill and got a pair of binoculars out of his pack, to survey the scene
below. It was a large warehouse complex, with several storage buildings and
a small office near the gate. The complex was enclosed by a fence eight
feet tall, with a double coil of razor wire along the top. He could only
see one gate, guarded by a single man armed with a rifle. Every ten minutes
the man spoke into a comm unit that hung from his belt.
 
Argus took one of the two rigger rats out of his pack and set it on the
seat behind him. Then he stowed the binoculars and rode slowly by the
complex, with the cycle in quiet mode. As he passed, he had the rat remote
jump off the cycle near the gate. When he got to the next curve, and out of
sight, he took full control of the remote, and had it head for the gate. He
watched the guard from a hiding place in the shrubbery until he called in
again. As soon as the man finished his check-in call, Argus opened the rat
remote's mouth and fired a trank dart at the guard. 
 
Before the man slumped to the ground, Argus was rolling as fast as he could
in silent mode, heading for the gate. He stopped at the gate, and took the
man's keys and comm unit. Then he scooped up the loose remote and rode
silently to the office building. He parked the bike near a side door, left
one rat remote to guard the bike, and let himself and the other remote in
with the stolen keys. 
 
He listened to the audio channel from Shadowcat's minicams. He could hear a
local 'silicon scratch' radio program blaring in the background. He tuned
that down and listened carefully in the office. He could hear the same
music. Argus sent the rat remote ahead of him, to look for any other guards
that might be present. At the very least, he expected to find the person
that the gate guard had been checking in with.
 
A few moments later, the rat remote relayed the sight of a very large
Japanese man, leaning back in a heavy-framed metal chair. The man was
polishing a large, chrome-plated autopistol, and listening to the music
Argus had heard earlier. The man saw the rat, and started to aim his gun at
it in a leisurely manner. Argus moved much faster, opening the remote's
mouth and sending two darts home in the fat mans neck, to ensure a swift
knockout. The man let out a groan and overbalanced, sending his chair over
backwards with a loud crash.
 
Argus looked around nervously, but there was no response to the sudden
noise. Hopefully that meant this was the only guard on duty in this office.
He looked around, but couldn't see anywhere that Shadowcat could be being
held. Then his eyes fell on something somewhat incongruous in the office
setting. Next to the radio was a rolled up blanket. He unrolled it, and
Shadowcat's minicam hair clips fell out on the counter. He deactivated the
transmitters in them, stuffed them in his pocket, and ran back to his bike
with the remote close behind. Then he gathered up the remotes and rode back
to the gate, tossing the comm unit and keys at the sleeping guard as he
left. 
 
The transmitters had been detected, and were sent elsewhere as a decoy. Now
his only chance of locating Shadowcat was if she regained consciousness and
called him on her head-phone. He had underestimated the people who
kidnapped her. He would not do so again.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Text, all characters (especially Obaasan, Aki, Argus and Shadowcat), and
the 'Virtually There' chain of simstim/VR clubs,
all Copyright March 1993 by Jay B. Brandt, all rights reserved. 
Please use them only with my permission. 
 
Comments, criticisms, and suggestions are requested.
Please send them to me via e-mail at <JBrandt@AAA.UOregon.edu>
--------------------------------------------------------------
 
Well folks, there's part 9.  Part 10 should be out in another one to two
weeks. What do you think? Any new comments?
 
Shadowcat