Bubblegum Crisis Fan Fiction ❯ Bubblegum Avatar #2 – "Born to be Killed" ❯ Chapter 2 - “No Man is an Island” ( Chapter 2 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

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Chapter 2 - “No Man is an Island”

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It was late in the day when Linna entered the Silky Doll. There were a few customers milling around the store, so the dancer did the same, looking over some of the store’s wares, narrowing down her choices of possible gifts for her friend.

She was looking over a selection of gauzy robes when she head a familiar voice say, “Can I help you?”

She looked up to see Sylia standing there, a slight look of curiosity on her face. “Y-yes,” Linna stammered. “I’m here to find a gift for a friend who is getting married soon and –“

Sylia arched an eyebrow. “Do you have any ideas about what to get your friend?”

“Not quite. I was thinking of something that she could wear on their honeymoon.”

“Ah.” Sylia’s smile was all business. “We have a selection over here you may like....”

For the next ten minutes, Sylia acted like a saleswoman, showing Linna an assortment of intimate apparel that would have sent most men’s pulse rates racing into overdrive. After being supplied with the friend’s measurements, Sylia narrowed down the choice she had in stock, and Linna chose an ensemble that would leave very little to the imagination. “An excellent choice,” Sylia had said smoothly, giving Linna a smile that wasn’t quite the one she showed to her friends and teammates.

After the items were brought back to the counter to be rung up, Sylia said, “Would you like to include a personal card with the package?”

“Sure,” Linna replied.

Sylia pulled out a computerpad and asked, “To whom would you like the card to be made out to?”

“Irene Cann.”

A split second, the stylus in Sylia’s hand hesitated, then continued. “And what message you like to have on the card?”

Linna had noticed the slight hesitation, but put that aside as she thought about what she wanted the card to say. After a minute, she said, “How about, ‘Here’s something to keep that first night from being too cold.’” At Sylia’s questioning glance, she said, “They’re planning to have their honeymoon in the mountains. Skiing and all that.”

“I see.” Sylia wrote the message down on the pad. “Would you like to have this delivered, or do you want to take it with you?”

“I’d better take it with me.”

“Very well.” Sylia rung up the sale. “That will be three hundred thousand nuyen.”

Linna passed over her card. Sylia ran it through the machine, completed the sale and returned the card to Linna. She then placed everything into a box and placed it on the counter. “It will take a couple of minutes to print up the card,” she said smoothly. “Would you like to come into the back and wait?”

“Sure,” Linna replied, trying not to sound eager.

“If you will follow me please.”

After Sylia had closed the door behind them, Linna turned and faced her leader. “What’s going on?”

Sylia started a printer and fed a blank card into the storage bin. “What do you mean?”

“What is with Irene Cann? I mentioned the name to Craig this morning, and he acted funny, like he’d heard the name before. When I told you who the card was for, you hesitated slightly. Is there something wrong with Irene?”

“There is nothing wrong with Irene in the way you are thinking.” Sylia motioned to a pot sitting on a tray next to the printer. “Coffee?”

“Er...yes. Is Irene in trouble?”

Sylia poured out two cups of rich-smelling coffee and handed one cup to Linna. “Not at the current time. But I have information that Irene could be in danger at a latter date. What do you know about Irene’ fiancee?”

Linna thought for a moment. “He’s a technician in one of the GENOM labs. Household appliances, I think Irene said. I’ve only met him a couple of times.”

“Do you know his name?”

“Jeremy Kwan.”

Sylia nodded. “Try and find out as much as you can about him from Irene.”

“All right, but why?”

“Because I have information that he isn’t working on household appliances, but on a new type of boomer.”

“What? Are you sure?”

“As sure as I can be right now.”

Linna sipped her coffee. “Why are you and Craig being so mysterious about this?”

Sylia sighed. “I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?” Linna asked sharply, she put the cup down. “I’m not a child! I have a right to know!”

“Not as this time.”

“Why not?”

“Because this isn’t the right time.”

“And when will that right time be? When Irene is dead?”

Sylia looked at her, her expression neutral, but her eyes showing suppressed anger. “I said not at this time.”

The dancer recalled as if she had been slapped. “You have no right to be playing with people’s lives!” she shouted.

“I’m not,” said Sylia, her voice calm. She sighed. “Linna, I am asking you to trust me on this matter. I will promise that I will not expose Irene or her fiancee to any more danger then they might be in already.”

“What danger?”

“That is what I’m trying to find out. Craig has uncovered some evidence that might lead to Irene and Jeremy being endangered sometime soon.”

“That boomer project you mentioned?”

“Yes. I am trying to find out under what conditions that danger becomes real. Once I know, then I can formulate a plan of action, but not before then. That’s why I can’t tell you anything right now, because I don’t know anything. All I’m asking you is to be patient and find out more about Jeremy Kwan from Irene. Anything might give us a clue to what lies ahead of them.”

“All right,” said Linna tightly. Some of her anger faded. “I don’t like this, but I’ll trust you this time.”

Sylia nodded. “That’s all I’m asking for now. Once I have more to go on, I will tell you.
Fair enough?”

“I guess so.”

“Good. Anything else?”

Linna thought for a second then remembered the disks Craig had given her. “Yes!” she removed the disks from her purse and gave them to Sylia. “The hard drives from Mason’s personal computers.”

Sylia arched an eyebrow. “Dare I ask?”

“You could, but then you would have to put up with a smirking Craig.”

The leader of the Knight Sabers shook her head. “I wish he had told me about this beforehand.”

“Are the drives useful?”

“I have no doubt about their usefulness. I just wish he would stop the harassment of Mason. He’s being a bit too enthusiastic with making Mason look like an idiot. I’ve had to reject three plans from Craig in the last week that involved humiliating Mason even more.”

“Do you think he’s hurting Mason with these pranks?”

“‘Hurting’ is a mild word. My sources inside the Tower say that Mason is in a continual state of anger. He’s been made to look like a laughing stock inside GENOM, and if there’s one thing Mason hates is being made a fool of. He is tearing this city apart looking for Craig, which is why Craig is staying close to home.”

“Isn’t that a good thing? I mean, if he’s too busy looking for Craig, he can’t be looking for us, right?”

“If Craig was a bit more moderate with his attacks, it would be enough to keep Mason off balance. But Mason’s getting too angry, and that could be a problem.”

“Why?”

Sylia sipped some coffee. “I have no doubts that Mason suspects that I’m the one behind the Sabers. But, until he had proof and the rest of the teams’s identities, he wasn’t going to move against me. On the other hand, if he thinks that I’m part of this campaign to harass him, Mason may strike out at us without approval of the Chairman. That could lead to us being exposed.”

“Why don’t you tell Craig to back off?”

“I have, but most of the stuff that’s happening to Mason was preprogrammed into the maintenance boomers database. Mason’s has been tearing into the network, looking for the holes Nene used to get into the maintenance system. It’s too dangerous to go back into the system at this time.”

Linna looked worried. “How much longer will these pranks run?”

“Another month, maybe two. Craig had Nene randomize the timing of some of the tricks.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“I think I’m going to go and talk to Craig,” she glanced at her watch. “I think we’ve been back here long enough.” Sylia removed the card from the printer and placed it into the box. She wrapped the box up, placed it into a bag, then handed the bag to Linna. “Leave Craig to me. Just keep an eye on Irene for me, all right? You can be a big help in that.”

“When are you going to see him?”

“Tomorrow afternoon. I have to talk to him about some other matters, and I think I should do it in person. In addition, I’ll take Mackie with me to check the emergency headquarters, just in case.”

“When’s our next training session?”

“Wednesday night, seven o’clock, at the garage.”

“Right.”

Sylia guided Linna out into the store, exchanging pleasantries with each other. Linna went out of the Silky Doll. It was beginning to get dark, the sun fading from the sky. As she walked to her car, she thought about what Sylia had said.

I am trying to find out under what conditions that danger becomes real. Once I know, then I can formulate a plan of action, but not before then. That’s why I can’t tell you anything right now, because I don’t know anything. All I’m asking you is to be patient and find out more about Jeremy Kwan from Irene. Anything might give us a clue to what lies ahead of them.

She reached her car and got in. She thought for a second, then got out her phone. She punched in a phone number and waited for the other end to be answered. It was.

“Hello?”

“Irene? This is Linna. Are you busy tonight?”

*****

Leon McNichol, ADP Inspector and senior field commander, walked into the squad room.

“Hey, Leon,” said Daley Wong, his partner. “Have a good night’s sleep?”

“Yep,” Leon replied. “It’s nice to have them one in a while. Anything I should know about?”

“Nope. It was a quiet night.” Daley leaned back in his chair. “Your new friend Viking did called and leave you a message on your voice mail.”

“Oh? What did he have to say?”

“I don’t know. He left the details for you.”

“Thanks.” Leon went over to his desk and punched in the voice mail code. He picked up the receiver and waited for the messages to cue up. He touched a button when he heard the list of messages.

Johansson’s voice was rough and low. “Hey Ace,” he said. “I dug up a couple more titbits for you on the situation you ran into with the Songbird of the Fault. First, your friend Smith’s people are still as nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Everyone in that outfit is being reexamined, up to and including physical exams to make sure they are human. Makes you wonder what happened to spook them so, huh?

“Second, Frederick has dropped out of sight. No hide or hair of the dude anywhere in the city. Best bet is that he is, or was, a tin man and he’s not functioning anymore.

“And third, some rumblings out of the man-made mountain indicate that a certain assistant to old fossil face went for a midnight flight that night. I won’t mention his name, but meet me in the place and time when you first spoke to the Songbird tomorrow night, and I’ll supply the name and some other details. Later!”

Leon hung up the phone and sat down. So, USSD is tightening security, he thought, and looking for boomer infiltrators. Frederick was probably a boomer and GENOM had a hand in stealing Hikigane from USSD. This is getting more complex by the minute.

“Anything I should know about?” Daley asked from his desk.

“I’ll tell you over a cup of coffee.”

The redheaded Inspector arched an eyebrow. “Oh wow.”

Leon levered himself out of his chair. “Cool you jets, Daley. I need a sounding board to bounce some ideas off of.”

“Well it’s a start.”

“Shut up, or you’re buying.”

*****

The meeting with Major Sten was a necessary evil, but Rowley was having a hard time restraining herself from throwing her hands into the air and walking out.

There were four people in the room. Major Stern, the base’s security commander, Captain Ohbari, his second-in-command, Doctor Hymes, the interim head of project Hikigane, and Rowley, Hikigane’s liaison officer. It had been proposed as an examination of the security breech, but had rapidly bogged down into a ‘pin-the-blame’ between Stern and Hymes. Rowley and Ohbari, the two junior members of the quartet, just sat and stayed out of the way.

“You should have realized that Frederick was a boomer,” Stern was saying. He was an attractive man, if somewhat on the thin side, with short blond hair and cool blue eyes. “He couldn’t have been that good an actor!”

Doctor Cora Hymes was taller, thinner and plain-faced. However, she was not a passive person. “Bullshit,” she said bluntly. “You security screening dropped the ball on this one. It was a fucking boomer, for God’s sake!”

“A very sophisticated boomer,” Stern replied, his voice as hard as diamond. “Didn’t you people realize it was a boomer? You’re the ones who spent the most time with it!”

“Well, we could ask the people who worked the closest with him, but there’s a small problem – most of them are DEAD!” Hymes stood to tower over the Major. “Where the hell were your people when the alarm sounded? They might have been able to do something more then sit around, drink coffee, and read porno mags!”

Stern stood up, shrinking the height advantage Hymes had, but not completely eliminating it. “How did the hell Frederick manage to get Hikigane out of the lab without any of you idiots realizing it?”

Just then, the phone in Rowley’s pocket beeped. Everyone looked at her. “Excuse me,” said Rowley said cooly. “I should take this outside.” She stood and left the room, glad of any excuse to get the hell out of there.

She went down the hall to a small vendor alcove, took out the phone and answered it. “Rowley.”

“We’ve got more problems with Hikigane,” said Schildt without preamble.

“What?”

“The boys have recovered part of the network’s security log. Someone accessed several of Hikigane’s more important files a day and a half before the attack.”

“So?”

“The user ID is for a technician that is still in the hospital, and has been for over a month.”

Oh shit, Rowley thought. The network used by the project was a closed network -- there were no outside lines for a hacker to use. Someone had accessed the system from inside the building. “Could it have been Frederick?”

“Possibly. I’ll have to get a copy of the work log and see if he was here during those times, but my gut instinct tells me that he didn’t do it.”

The USSD Captain closed her eyes. “Get the evidence together. If there’s another spy inside Hikigane, he might still be around.”

“Yes, Ma’am, that is a possibility. One other thing on the security logs.”

“What?”

“Someone with an unknown ID accessed most of the same project Hikigane files on a remote backup server. From the time frame, I think Major Sangnoir was doing more then looking around.”

Damn, damn, DAMN! “Is there any chance this Sangnoir was working with Frederick?”

“Maybe, but I don’t think so. Why risk another man when you have the prototype and the hard data already?”

“Keep on it. I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of ‘possible’ and ‘maybe’. I want ‘definite’ and ‘certainty’ sometime soon, or we’re going to be in a shitload of trouble.”

“So what else is new, Ma’am?” Schildt asked. “Do we still keep this in-house?”

“For now. I want something that Stern isn’t going to be able to dismiss out of hand, and I don’t want our opponents to know what we’re doing until we’re ready.”

“Understood, Ma’am. Anything else?”

Rowley glanced up to the hall where the meeting was still taking place. “Beep me in another ten minutes with a ‘urgent request’ signal. I need to get out of that room before I end up strangling both Hymes and Stern.”

“The meeting is not going well then?”

“No Sargent, it is not.”

“You’ll get your signal in ten, Ma’am.”

“Thank you. Rowley out.” she broke the connection, made sure the phone was on beeper mode, then started back towards the room. Now all she had to do was survive the next ten minutes without killing anyone....