Port Casper

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Raj stopped in the alley and leaned against a wall. He let out several heavy, wheezing hacks and gulped air into his lungs. The fire in his chest burned and every breath afterwards stung a thousand pinpricks in his throat: a present from the sooty duct they had used to enter the last building. Their mimic clothes had kept them clean. Raj wished he could say the same for his lungs.

Four hours had passed since Raj's implant blared noodtoestand. The blind bang. Like everyone else, he had turned to his fact agents and saw holomasked terrorists drag a portly, balding man out of his mover and execute him. No sign of Grace. And in searching for her in the newsfeeds, he hit upon what others in the grid community had already noticed. There had been a three minute delay in the only fact agent at the scene. It was a replay, not a live feed. The fact agent had been hacked.

The blind bang was over in less than an hour, but Grace didn't contact him. The only message he'd gotten was brief, but terrifying: Grace's ptenda had been removed and switched off.

Raj had narrowed down the search at home, based on the ptenda's last position, but the remaining buildings had opaque datasets. He had no choice but to search in person. Raj had spoofed Grace's blurp credentials while searching, but he heard no messages meant for the protector. Stranger still, no blurps from any ITB operatives. Shouldn't they have been communicating with her? Or looking for her?

He glanced again at the telemetry. Grace last transmitted three hours ago, in this area. But without a constant stream of data, he could only guess she was still here. Five buildings searched; three left to go.

"Maybe the building on the right." Tim whispered. "The one on the left has too many windows."

Raj glared at the shadows and put a warning finger to his lips. They were searching well away from crowds, but he wished Tim wouldn't speak in public, no matter how quietly.

Raj's grafty told him the building on the right was the property of ITB, and was being leased to Holist Group, a medical technology company. Certainly a possibility. ITB had several semi-autonomous and dummy corporations to separate its less savory activities from the public eye. Tim had an old list, and among them were names associated with genetics and biochemistry. Med-tech wasn't far off.

The floor plan showed two street level entrances. One was just around the corner, and Raj noted only a single scanner port with minimal surveillance. As he peered through the windows, he saw why: the building was abandoned. The entranceway had a few items of outdated office furniture strewn haphazardly against a wall. Raj checked his data: Holist was still renting, and had been for years. Compstate categorized it as a research facility. Hmmm.

At least he wouldn't have to enter through a ventilation duct this time. Raj used his grafty to activate the mechflesh of his left hand. It could duplicate the surface of any hand Raj had ever shaken. He hadn't sold the patent yet. It was too useful to him during the liquid computer negotiation. Eventually he suspected it would make him a tidy sum from compstate.

He ran a search through his hand's memory. The list was long: he'd pawed over a hundred hands in the last month alone. A search for likely ITB employees turned up a list of fifty-two. Raj clarified: ABANDONED. Twenty-two options. He looked at Tim. Even if this wasn't an important building, a false attempt at entry might give them away.

The PodPooch flashed a repairman working on a machine and a janitor mopping a hallway before his face reset. Raj nodded in understanding. MAINTENANCE. Three possibilities remained. Raj recognized one of the men as a regular at a bar across from his lab. He had a beer with him last week. The guy had complained about being overworked because he serviced too many buildings.

"Here goes," he said to Tim, as his hand tingled into a new configuration. He started to place his left hand on the scanner, then stared in dismay. It was an ancient model: right hands only. Raj clenched his left hand in a silent scream of frustration.