From: Tranquility <blitz@crow.cybercomm.net>
Subject: The G-Man
Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 11:16:32 -0400


My name is Victoriano Grandinetti, and I'm a G-Man.

Of course, you don't hear people calling government agents G-Men
anymore...the younger crowd usually refers to me as Pig, Asshole, Nazi,
Gestapo, and a number of other things.  The old-timers still call me 5-O
and Fed.  Other government people call me a Screw, a bastardization of
SCU, Special Crimes Unit.  Not too many government people, though, since
I don't officially exist.  SCU is a liberal's nightmare.  Take a bunch of
hardboiled, mostly-incorruptable law enforcement personnel, give them
bigger guns and faster cars, sick them on a wrong-doer, and cut them
loose.  That's what I do.  We generally carry identification linking us
with the government, but we're seldom forced to use it.  We don't usually
make arrests.  We usually just kill them.  That's our job.  There are a
lot of criminals in this world, but there usually isn't enough evidence
to go around, and prisons are always filling up.  Something has to be
done about the known criminals that warrant punishment but punishment,
for whatever reason, can't be legally obtained.  That's where I come in.

I don't ALWAYS kill them.  Sometimes I'm told specifically what to do,
and every once in a while, my superiors tell me it's my call.  I like it
when they do that.  That means they trust my judgement.  Some criminals
don't warrant death, and a warning, or possibly a beating, is enough to
discourage their activities.  Sometimes an offer for help is what's
required.  It varies from case to case.

I wasn't always a Screw.  At one time I worked for a company.  Err,
scratch that, I never worked for a company.  They're a little odd about
that.  They don't usually let you leave, and if they do, it's under the
condition that you never tell anyone what you've done.  So, out of
respect for my previous employer, I didn't work at a corp for eight
years.  I didn't get the job because my uncle was an executive, and I
wasn't good at it, which is why they didn't keep me on as long as they
did.

Now, if I HAD worked for a corp, I would've been an operative, one of
those men that always wears a suit and sunglasses.  I would've driven a
black car, most likely Japanese -- the corp I didn't work for was
Japanese.  Some of the jobs I didn't do involved hits, theft, kidnapping,
espionage, and sabotage.  In fact, I wasn't responsible for that bomb
that went off in the New England Pharmaceuticals complex four years ago.
If I had worked for this corp, I would've been called upon to do missions
that involved the death of women and children.  This didn't bother me.  I
would've been counted on to be efficient and ruthless.  I could do this
well enough.  When I left, I was prime material for the SCU program, and
they called me, not vice versa -- they'd tried to kill me before, so I
was understandably reluctant to talk to them.

Of course, when they'd learned I'd come clean, they weren't interested in
killing me anymore.  They wanted me working for them.  Now, call me
old-fashioned -- and I am, an old-fashioned Italian boy from an
old-fashioned family -- a job that offers regular hours, nice variety,
decent pay, and good benefits appeals to me.  That's why I hadn't worked
for the corp.  The pay would've been better if I had worked for a corp,
but working for SCU, I only went after proven bad guys.  I liked that.
It was an atonement of sorts.  It was worth a pay cut.

Oh.  If you think I'm going to tell you what corp I didn't work for,
forget it.  You can only push the envelope so far with these guys.

It was a little ironic, really.  Most of the scumbags I go after these
days are combat vets, wired on drugs and carrying more metal than most
modern cars.  I'm no military person, but I carry more than my fair share
of metal.  To be exact, both legs, one arm, part of my brain, and some
other scattered implants to make me more efficient at my job, like
subdermal plating, a fused ribcage, some aftermarket organs, an onboard
biocomp, some neat sensory preprocessors, a few gigs of storage
space...you name it, I've probably got it.  I can stick magnets on some
parts of my body.  When I microwave food, I see stars unless I'm wearing
leadded glasses, which I usually do.

I carry a lot of guns, too, depending on what the mission at hand is.
Normally, I'm content with a few pistols, maybe an SMG and some
grenades.  People ask me why I carry so many pistols -- I generally have
4.  I have my reasons for everything.

>From my experience, there are four basic firefights.  The first is the
sniper's firefight.  The sniper takes one or two shots, kills his
opponent, and leaves.  That's all there is.  If he's good, his target
won't even see him.  You take a weapon built for the job on a mission
like this.  Military lasers are good, since the beams are invisible, but
with the amount of cybereyes in circulation these days, a lot of people
can see the beams now, and that's like a big arrow pointing at your
position.  I prefer magrifles myself, with the power toned down so the
shell leaves just below the speed of sound -- it makes less noise that
way.  Most of the noise a bullet makes is a sonic boom.

The second is when two parties KNOW there's going to be a shootout, and
they're both ready.  Everyone will be taking cover, picking their shots,
calling for backup, and generally doing a pretty good job of killing
each other.  Like the sniper's firefight, you know this is coming, and
you can prepare.  SMG's are nice for this, as the high rate of fire makes
suppression easy, (hell, you can usually just point the thing in the air
and shoot and everyone hits the ground) and you can switch it back down
to semiauto or three-round burst for racking up the kills.  Then again, I
like to have one of these with me all the time, but I'm a little paranoid.

The third is when one group jumps another.  If you're the ambusher, you
know what's going to happen, so you can prepare.  If not, it pays to be
prepared, hence the SMG and the grenades.  There are so many things you
can do with these two weapons alone, it makes it all worthwhile.
Sometimes it pays to carry a sawed-off for close range engagments where
your opponents are carrying too much armor for a pistol to go through.

The fourth, though, is by far the most common one.  It's when parties
just start shooting, almost always at extremely close range.  It's the
kind of combat where you grab whatever the hell you have and just start
shooting, since there are usually too many fucking people around to pick
targets.  A shotgun is nice here, but it's not always economical to carry
one of those babies, and even the ones with the magazines don't carry too
many bullets.  THIS is where it pays to have a lot of pistols.  Pistols
are light, easily concealable, and you can hold one in either hand and
still hit something from time to time.  In an engagement like this, you
just want to pump out as much fire as possible, so two pistols ARE better
than one here.  Aiming isn't all that important, so why bother only using
one?  There are other advantages, too.  What if one breaks down?  What if
you run out of ammo and your clips aren't where you thought they were?
(Happens more often than you think.)  And if someone pats you down -- and
there ARE still people who pat down instead of trusting electronics to
detect weapons, God alone knows why -- the more weapons you carry, the
more likely they are to miss one of them.  Of course, the more weapons
they find, the more thoroughly they're going to search you, so you've got
to find a balance.

Besides, two pistols at once looks pretty cool.

Four pistols works for me.  Coupled with an SMG, a few knives, some
grenades, maybe a Whopper or two, and you're a walking arsenal.  The
Whoppers are especially nice.  They were designed by a
friend of mine, in fact, nice girl by the name of Sasha that likes
playing with explosives and getting paid by the government to do it.
They're like little pancakes you strap to yourself, with shaped charges
and a packet of tungsten pellets.  The explosion only goes one way,
theoretically -- outwards, away from you and into the bad guys.  They DO
work, too, usually.  You've just got to make sure you don't have an arm
in the way or something when it goes off, or you'll lose it.  Sasha once
explained to me that if you knew what you were doing, it was possible to
blow someone's shoes off their feet without hurting them.  I'd laughed at
the time, but that was before I'd popped my first Whopper.  Granted, it
feels like someone slugging you in the gut, but it works.

All of which is off the topic at hand, of course.  I had a case.  I'd
just been taken off one involving a bigtime shootout at a beach resort in
Jersey.  The FBI and ATF had been working with us on that one.  They were
pretty sure whoever was responsible for that bloodbath was responsible
for the shit in Seattle, so I was going on a little paid vacation.  Close
the Seattle case, and the Jersey one would be closed, too.

I reviewed the files thoroughly on the plane via cellular modem -- my
overstuffed head has one of THOSE, too.  I made sure to download a copy,
since I've still got over a gig of free space.  The files were only two
megs or so.  In particular, I watched the body count.  There were
surpisingly few bodies.  Only one confirmed, actually, a clerk at HTI.
Took a round in the head, explosive.  Seattle PD confirmed it was a .25,
fired from a gun that was now pretty familiar in my mind.  Jennifer Srin,
aka Jetta, and Srin wasn't even her real name, it was Rin...no idea where
the "S" came from.  She wasn't a good guy, but I didn't think of her as a
bad guy, either.  She was one of those people that gave black-and-white
cops a headache because she was gray.  I'd have to arrest her.  That
wasn't going to be fun.  She had a very bad tendency to resist arrest and
shoot cops.  Of course, shooting me was a federal offense, or would be if
I existed, and I don't, remember?

That was a problem, too -- the thing about shooting me being a federal
offense.  I didn't LOOK like a Fed.  I wore the suits and the shades, but
my hair was long.  Not TOO long, but down a little past my shoulders.  I
kept it in kind of a pigtail to keep my superiors from shitting bricks.
There were reasons for this, too.  Back in the good old days, I didn't
always have money for a haircut, nor for the gel to slick it back in a
traditional Fed or corp style.  Besides, it was good old Italian hair,
right?  The ladies loved it.  Italian hair looks pretty good when it's
not full of gel, and believe it or not, not ALL Italians slick it back.
I don't.  I think I'm the only one, though.

I was big, too.  Over six feet, brown hair and eyes, Italian face and
features.  I'd been built like a linebacker before I started losing
limbs, so I was slimmer now, but still big.  Hell of a lot stronger,
though.  I could move cars now, but I had to be careful that my limbs
didn't tear free of their mountings.  Still, there's nothing quite as
satisfying as picking up a borg twice your size, slamming him against a
brick wall hard enough to crack it, and saying to him, "Why yes, you ARE
under arrest, I insist."

Next to me was Roberta Van Der Veen.  She wasn't big; in fact, she was a
little on the small side.  She wasn't Italian, either.  She was from the
city-state of Praetoria, in South Africa, over here on the emmigration
discounts the United States government was offering to select foreign law
enforcement personnel.  Her hair wasn't long, either, and I suspected
that she disapproved of mine.  She was a very serious woman who took her
job even more seriously.  She'd left Praetoria on one of the last
departing flyers during the Evacuation, better known as the White
Flight, shooting her way out of a besieged municipal complex, through
several streets packed with rioters, and onto her ticket out of there.
Someone had told me once that the flyer she'd taken was too heavy to take
off even before she'd boarded it, and she'd shot several of the
passengers to lighten it up.  She'd also thrown off two other people at
an altitude of two hundred feet for reasons I didn't know.  I'd never
asked her about it.  She was a little sensitive about things like that.

She reached up to her head.  Her hair, fairly short, was slicked back
with a liberal application of gel, and she lifted it, rather than brushed
it, back.  The bottom half of her skull was shaved to keep her data ports
clear, but they were usually invisible underneath her hair.  She unreeled
the fiber optic cable out of the seat's armrest and plugged it in.  Her
eyes were covered by her shades, but I knew they were glazing over and
going blank.

"I'm calling SPD," she said.  She had a hint of an accent, very
gutteral.  Dutch, that was it.  I think that's what they spoke there, the
whites anyway.  "There has to be more than this."

"Just one corpse," I acknowledged.  "I was expecting a bloodbath."

She'd made a connection; she began mouthing words to the dispatcher on
the other end.  I read her lips.  *Hello, Agent Van Der Veen, FBI.  Get
me Detective Hurley, please.*  FBI.  That's what we always told people we
were with, the FBI.  Technically, it was correct -- SCU was actually an
offshoot of the FBI, although we didn't answer to them and they usually
didn't bother us.

I kept watching.  *Detective?  Hello.  I've got some questions regarding
the investigation of the shooting at the HTI agency.  Yes, we're on our
way now.  We should be arriving in an hour or two.  What was that?*  A
pause.  *Interesting.  Yes, hold them please.  Yes, we have jurisdiction
on this.  I'd appreciate it if you didn't interrogate them until we
arrive.  Yes.  Yes, that would be fine.  Thank you, Detective.  What?
You are too kind.  Your cooperation will be noted.  Yes.  Good bye,
Detective.*

Roberta unplugged the wire and let it slide back in.  She pushed her hair
back into its immaculate place without a thought.

"I'll speak out loud next time," she said.

"Don't worry about it."  I grinned.  "What's going on over there?"

"They collared some people in a gunfight.  Five people total, two without
identification.  The others were Chen Ho, male, Katrina Guinvieve,
female, and Abbie Urbania, female."

"Gotcha."  I flipped up a panel on my left forearm.  My computer was in
there.  Technically, the interface was inside my head, but mental
commands didn't work well with names, and the arm port had a mike on it.
I raised it to my mouth.  "Retrieve entry Chen Ho.  Retrieve entry
Katrina Guinvieve.  Retrive entry Abbie Urbania."  Shit.  Large block
letters sprang across my vision -- WARNING: Not enough memory for split
window display.  Please check setup and system configuration and/or kill
unnecessary processes.

Not like that was going to help me.  The message cleared, and the file
menu popped down.  I focused my attention on EXIT.  The menu cleared.  My
setup was fine; I just didn't have the RAM to put up triple displays most
of the time.  I'd have to bitch at the requisitions guys for a few more
megs one of these days.  I broke out my portable, housed neatly in a set
of bulky goggles, and put it on my head.  I popped the interface cord out
of my arm and plugged it in.  They came to life.

"Repeat," I said into my arm.  Three windows sprang up over my vision,
blocking it out except for a circle in the middle.  I had it set up to
take up my peripheral view but leave the center intact.  I didn't like
being completely blind.

"Who do they work for?" asked Roberta, going through the same motions no
doubt.  She had even less RAM than me, having been on the force for less
time.

"BioWorks, Inc."  I said.  "Chen is prior military.  So's Abbie.  Don't
know about Katrina, doesn't list anything like that."

"I see it," said Roberta.  I glanced at her.  She had her goggles on.

"What do you think?" I asked.

"Hit squad.  They were gonna ice someone."

"Yeah.  I can't WAIT to talk to these people," I said, smiling.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oddly enough, they couldn't wait to talk to us.

Now, as I said, I'm heavily involved with the law enforcement community.
I know how to give interrogations.  I know the signs to look for, the
tactics to use, what to do, and what not to do.  I also know that people
will ALWAYS lie to you, even when they have no reason to.  People like
lying to cops, whether they've done something wrong or not.  The funny
thing was, when I scanned them, they were telling the truth.

We decided to do them one at a time, which was more or less standard
policy.  Let them trip themselves up on their stories, right?  Nope.
They were either telling the truth or else they were VERY familiar with
the story they were supposed to tell, but I would've detected that.  They
were telling the truth.

We brought Chen in first.  He didn't look too happy.  He'd been grazed in
the firefight, but it was a superficial wound, and he'd already been
treated and released.  He had some bruises, too; someone had beat the
shit out of him.

"So what's the deal?  Why're you fighting with these guys?" I asked.

"Fuck him.  Let's just shoot the son of a bitch," said Roberta.  Good
cop, bad cop.  The tactic had been designed 150 years ago, and it still
worked like a charm.

"Roberta here, she's a mean customer," I explained to Chen.  "She really
HATES it when people lie to her.  So far, you've been pretty good about
being straight with us.  So what's the deal?"

"They're Yakuza," said Chen.  "Trying to kill us.  We were sent here to
get the empath back, kill Jetta, too, if we found her.  The Yaks decided
they were gonna do it.  They gave us a warning to back down, we didn't,
and now they're trying to kill us."

All true.  "Why are you trying to kill Jetta?"

"She fucked BioWorks over a few times.  And, she had their empath.  She
was told never to enter North America again.  She did."  He shrugged.  "I
don't make the policy, I just execute it."

"Why do the Yaks want Jetta?" I asked.

"I...I'm not sure," he said.  "Seems that everyone wants her dead these
days."

"Makes sense.  Good talking to you, Chen.  Roberta, get the next one in
here."

Abbie was in worse shape than Chen.  She'd really taken a beating.  Her
face had had some skin grafts recently, too.  She told the same story, as
did Katrina.  That'd been a first for me, bringing in three perps and
having them all tell the same story the first time around.

We brought the two Japs in.  Needless to say, they didn't talk.  Not even
after we knocked them around a bit.  Roberta promised them a backwoods
execution and a shallow grave if they didn't talk.  They took her up on
it.  She was going to do it, too, but Hurley stepped in -- he didn't like
the idea of it, said that witnesses had seen them collar the two and the
lawyers already knew about the arrest.  We couldn't kill them.  Too bad.
The bastards had been smart enough not to shoot at the cops, either,
which was very fortunate for them.  These days, if you shoot a cop for
whatever reason, you run like hell for the police station.  It's a race
between you and the cops.  If they catch you before you make it, you're
dead -- resisting arrest, going for a gun, whatever, and the superiors
won't ask questions.  If you get there first, you'll live.  They'll beat
the living shit out of you, but they won't kill you.

"Hurley," I said, flagging down the detective through the crowded squad
room.  I had to talk to this guy.  I had a bad feeling about him.  Not
that I had a problem with cops that took in a little action here and
there on the side, but I had a real problem with it when they were on the
take and they were fucking up my investigation.  There is NO excuse to fuck
up a SCU investigation.  We don't like being fucked with.  If he was fucking
with me, well...I'd just have to fuck with him back.  And I was REAL good
at fucking with people.  I had the weight of the US of A to throw
around.  NO ONE gives me shit.

"Yes?" he asked.  Young guy, fit for a cop.  Probably worked foot detail
for a while, he had strong legs.  The foot cops carry a lot of
equipment.  Makes them easy to pick out, they walk fast and have big legs.

"What's the deal with these two?" I said.  "They're Yaks."

"They are?" he asked.

"Don't fucking play with me, Hurley," I said.  "I'm a good guy.  I like
to get along with cops.  Hell, I like cops.  I AM a cop, I've just got a
bigger precinct than most.  I'm being straight with you, man.  What's the
deal with these two?"

"We can't touch them, Grandinetti," he said.

"Vic.  Call me Vic."

"We can't touch them, Vic," he said, now a little worried.  "The Yakuza,
they OWN this precinct.  We fuck with them, we're fucked up."  His eyes
got a little desperate now, and he leaned closer to whisper to me.
"Look, Vic, I've got a kid in school, bills to pay, right?  These guys
are treating me REAL good.  If we fuck with them, I'm out of a job and
most likely dead.  I got a family to worry about."

If he hadn't mentioned the family, I probably would've gone after him
right then and there.  I couldn't do it now, though.  He'd hit my weak
spot without knowing it.  Family's an important thing, the only people
you can trust these days.  Without a family, you're shit.  I nodded to him.

"That's cool," I said.  "I understand.  Do what you have to, but I'm
going after these guys.  You've gotta do your job and I've gotta do
mine.  Capish?"

He didn't like it, but I was offering better than he'd expected me to.

"Okay," he said finally.

"Here's what I'll promise," I said.  "As far as your superiors know,
you're helping me out.  As far as the Yaks know, you're not.  I'll work
this on my own.  I want you to promise that you're not going to fuck me."

"Okay," he said.

"Cool."  I clapped him on the shoulder.  "Do what you have to with the
Yaks.  Let the other three go."

"Let them GO?" he asked.

"Yeah.  Let them go.  Technicality.  Whatever.  I need them on the street."

"Why?" he asked.

"You ever read Sun Tzu, the Art of War?" I asked.

"No."

"Great book, Hurley.  Changed my life.  Anyway, he said that anyone who's
an enemy of your enemy is your friend.  Those three aren't very happy
with the Yaks right now.  I want you to cut them loose and keep tabs on
them for me.  This'll help you out as much as it'll help me out."

"How?" he asked.

"Just kick the thought around for a bit.  You'll figure it out sooner or
later.  I wouldn't ask you to do this if it was going to fuck you up,
Hurley."

"Thanks, Vic."

"No problem."

I did feel kind of bad about that, offering up the three assassins to the
Yakuza like that, but I had my reasons.  Hurley was a double agent now,
rather than just working for the Yaks.  I had him in my corner, to an
extent.  The three assassins had been totally straight with me, I didn't
need them anymore.  And, I was hoping if they got out and got active,
they'd point me in the right direction.  Finally, BioWorks was going to
hear about me letting them go.  I'd have a little pull with BioWorks.
They took care of their own, and they took care of people who took care
of them.  This job is a big game, one where you need as many allies as
possible.  BioWorks wasn't a bad one, as far as allies went.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Having a police scanner is a must for someone in my business.  There are
things the cops won't tell you, just because they resent having you
muscling in on their territory.  I can't say that I blame them, even if I
don't approve.  It's just one of those things you work around.  A police
scanner is helpful for this.

A direct tap on the dispatcher's terminal is even better.

"Just got something good," said Roberta, riding beside me.  "Some lady
called in, said she heard gunfire, then saw some woman riding a motorcyle
go tearing around and crash.  Some kind of flyer landed, some people got
out, they fought, and they snatched the woman."

"A flyer?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"What insignia?"

"Hold on...she didn't see any."

"How long ago?" I asked.

"Maybe ten minutes."

I flipped on the car's radar, patched in to Seattle-Tacoma Airport's
system.  No one flew around the Puget Sound without SeaTac knowing about
it.  There were blips all over the fucking place.  I had the computer
trace their flight paths, show their headings, and plot a most probably
route for each.  Most of them were going to the airport; the ones that
weren't were heading away from it.  Not very surprising information.  I
had the computer sort them -- helicopters, skimmers at high altitude,
jets, planes, and flyers.  That was better; only three were flyers.  Two
were headed towards the airport.

"How far away from the airport was this location?" I asked.

"Other side of the city."

"Hmmm..."  I gave it a little thought.  "When did the last flyer arrive
at SeaTac?"

"Just over fifteen minutes ago," said Roberta.

"That's not them.  You're sure there weren't any incoming flyers between
now and then?"

"None on the logs.  And they are VERY strict about their logs, even
illegal flights," said Roberta.  "They have VIP, military, everything on
file, you just need more clearance to access.  I've got full clearance,
I'd know about it."

"So either they landed at a private strip in the city or they're still in
the air.  Any landings outside of SeaTac recently?" I asked.

Roberta squinted.  "No."

"Okay, then.  One of those three is our flyer, and one is heading away
from the airport, so it's probably not them.  I need pictures,
identification codes, owners, and manifests of the other two."

"Got it," she said, tapping away at the car's keyboard.  She plugged her
arm into it.  The monitor flashed to life, displaying 3-views of two
different flyers.  One was festooned with Fed-Ex emblems.

"She said no insignia," I said, pointing my thumb at the Fed-Ex flyer.
"That thing looks like a fucking circus tent."

"The Fed-Ex one is owned by Fed-Ex, manifest is a whole list of
deliveries for Oregon," said Roberta.  She pointed to the other one,
large, ungainly, and black -- a military model, sans insignia.  "This
other one is owned by Pac-Atlantic Shipping, manifest listed as medical
supplies."

"It's a military flyer," I said.

"Probably bought it as surplus, it's hardly state-of-the-art and it's got
a lot of lifting power at low speeds.  Good for shipping," said Roberta.
"For your information, PAS is owned by Koshuru Microcomputers, which is
owned by Komatsu Information Systems, which is owned by Sukaike Software,
which is owned by the Sukaike Zaibatsu -- strong ties to the Yakuza."

"That's some confusing shit," I said.  It was, wasn't it?

"That's the whole idea behind a zaibatsu," she said.  "One parent company
begins by buying all the companies affiliated with it as it grows, so it
owns its suppliers, its distributers, and anything else it would normally
need to see another company about.  Totally self-contained.  Makes it
tougher than hell to track the stuff down, too."

"That's them," I said.  "What's the destination?"

"Not SeaTac, surprisingly," she said.  "They're stopping someplace else
first.  Um...it's got a location."  She pointed it out to me.  I entered
it into the car's guidance computer and sat back.

"Are they gonna be happy to see US," I said, chuckling.  "We'd better
call for backup."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

There isn't a government agency in existance that doesn't have problems
with corruption.  The IRS has problems, the FBI has problems, the CIA is
rumored to have problems, even Internal Affairs has problems.  SCU would
have problems, if it existed.

Now, I'd run into corruption before.  Usually it consisted of a perp
throwing a wad of bills at the arresting officer, or maybe promising some
favors, and he was let off with a slap on the wrist instead of a shot in
the head.  When I heard about it, I did nothing.  When it happened in my
presence, I did what was expected of me -- I told the guy not to do it,
but I didn't push it.  We have to look after our own.  I'd had cases
sabotaged, too, when I got in too deep; that usually meant I was over my
head, that it was time to back out.  I didn't like it, but I lived with it.

Backup was currently unavailable.  They didn't want us to go ahead with this.

But, of course, I am Victor Grandinetti, last word of the law and a big,
gun-toting pisan that doesn't take shit from anyone, right?

"Fuck 'em," I said.  "We'll do this alone."  Roberta didn't have a
problem with that.  She just wanted to shoot some people.

(Enter VIC into living room.  VIC has just been hired by a corporation
and he's thrilled about it.  VIC SR., and MRS. GRANDINETTI, are both
present.)

VIC: Ma!  Pop!  They hired me!
VIC SR: That's great, son!  What're you going to be doing there?
VIC: They're putting me in the security division.
VIC SR: This is GREAT news!  Martha, put a bird in the oven!  We've got to
        celebrate!

(Scene closes.)

(Cut to dull, concrete hallway.  Tube lights go along the top to provide
lighting.  There is a body on the floor.  Enter VIC, who is running but
limping badly.  VIC is leaving a big trail of blood on the floor.  VIC
has a satchel under his arm, held protectively, and a pistol in the other
hand.  VIC moves down the hallway.)

(Enter GUARD from the way VIC came.  GUARD has a submachine gun.)

GUARD: Freeze!

(GUARD takes a few shots.  VIC turns and fires back.)

GUARD: (grunts)

(GUARD falls back against the wall and slides down, smearing it with blood.)

(Scene closes.)

Damn, but I'm talented.

We made a pass by the building.  It wasn't anything special -- some old,
decrepit brick building with a rusty fire escape on the side and a heavy
wooden door in front.  The windows were painted black and covered with
bars.  I couldn't see the roof, but it was definately large enough to
have a landing pad for a flyer...the things are VTOL anyway, it wouldn't
have to be THAT big.  You could land one on a garage if the roof was
strong enough, but that kind of reinforcement wouldn't necessarily be
evident from outside.  There was an alley beside it, with a wide, squat
building at the end, running into the first one.  Probably a garage.
These guys wouldn't park on the street.

"Let's park down here," I said, moving a few hundred feet up the road.  I
pulled over.  "Car's unmarked.  The kids won't fuck with it."

We got out and popped the trunk.  I smiled.  We had the firepower to do
the job, I wasn't worried about that part.  I started loading up.  So did
Roberta.  We knew whose guns were whose.  I had most of the pistols --
two 9 millimeter, two 10 millimeter, one .45.  There was an ADI compact
in there, an SMG...that was mine, too.  I holstered it behind my back,
underneath my jacket.  No sense in being too outrageous.  Roberta had the
heavy stuff, which I always thought kind of funny.  I was the big guy,
and I liked the pistols.  She was the little woman, and she liked the big
hardware.  I raised my eyebrow when I saw her assembling a large rifle.
I hadn't seen that before.

"What's that?" I asked.

"PAW," she answered.

"Where the fuck did you get one of those?"

She didn't answer.

She strolled around the outside, taking a better look at it.  I jumped up
on the fire escape.  It would've surprised a bystander, but there weren't
any, and as I said before, my legs were name-brand.  High jumps weren't a
problem.  The building was only three stories, so I MIGHT have been able
to catch a hold of the roof, but there's an inherant problem when you can
jump higher than you can fall -- if I missed, it was gonna hurt, so I
stuck with the easy stuff.  Besides, this gave me a chance to check out
the second and third story doors.  Both were locked, but the second story
one was in bad shape.  I picked it without any trouble and waved Roberta
up.  Poor Roberta didn't have legs like mine, so I had to catch her hands
and pull her up.  Dropping the ladder would've been like ringing a gong.

"What're you waiting for?" she asked, cradling the rifle.

"Looking for my search warrant," I joked.  I switched my eyes over to
thermal and peered in.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  We stepped inside
and closed the door.  It was a hallway, running down some distance and
turning left and right.  It smelled kind of musty, but it was an old
building.  Like I said, nothing out of the ordinary.  I began to get a
little nagging doubt in the back of my mind...maybe we fucked up.  I
didn't pay it too much attention, though, because the SCU never fucks
up.  We make mistakes from time to time, but we never fuck up.  We're pros.

Roberta motioned with her hand.  Stick together?

I nodded.  No sense getting split up in this place.  Go downstairs, work
our way up.  We were carrying enough restraints and gags for thirty
people between the two of us, and if there were more than that, we'd just
use the stunners on them until they were too fucked up to remember their
name, let alone make any noise.

I took the lead.  No security cameras, that was a little odd.  It was
second story, though.  We'd have to watch the rooms.  I knew firsthand
how much corporations loved to watch their employees with cameras, and
they'd adopted the practice from the Japanese.  Japanese LOVED to watch
people.  I enabled the guncam linkup on one of my pistols and aimed it
around the corner.  It was clear, ending in a heavy door, probably to the
staircase.  There was another door set in the wall beside it.  I pointed
it the other way.  Another door, further down, with one in the wall next
to it.  Not much for originality, but it sure as hell made my job
easier.  We'd have to check those doors, though.  I didn't like the idea
of people sneaking up behind me while we were downstairs.  Damn, we
needed some more people.

First door: Roberta put her ear against it, waited a moment, and shook
her head.  If anyone was inside, they were in a deep coma or dead.  She
had a state-of-the-art audio unit.  She'd hear the blood going through
their arteries, let alone movements, breathing...hell, she could hear
someone blink down the hallway when she jacked it up good.  I thought
about snapping my fingers beside her head while she had it turned up, but
this was serious shit, and besides, she got really pissed off when I did
that.

Second door: unlocked.  Roberta didn't hear anything behind it, although
she said she heard things upstairs and downstairs.  I cracked it.  It was
a stairwell.  Nice.  I motioned for her to check the other two doors
while I watched this.  I didn't want a secretary bringing coffee down
while we were tossing the place.

Third door: Roberta gestured back.  Someone inside.  I looked at the
door.  It was electronic.  I didn't think that was the door that came
with the building.  It had been replaced for some reason.

Fourth door: Someone behind that too.  And it was electronic.  Hell, the
only one that HADN'T been electronic was the stairway.  Each of them had
a little keypad beside it, with a card slot for the lazy, and a
retinal/fingerprint scanner for the lazy with implants.

I backpedalled over to Roberta, still watching the stairs.  She gestured:
what now?

As it turns out, the decision was made for us.  One of the doors slid
open.  Roberta gave him a solid blast from her stunner.  He slumped
against the wall.  I stepped through the doorway, taking the room in at a
glance -- office, hardwood desk, Japanese decoration, floor mat,
paintings on the walls, blackened window, computer terminal on desk, man
sitting beside the desk, Japanese and wearing a suit.  He reached under
his jacket before I could really say anything to him.  Fast, too.
Probably would've gotten a shot off if my guns hadn't been out.  Jacked
up REAL high.  A soldier.  I shot a few times.  The silencers hushed it
down to something like a spitball coming out of a straw, only...I don't
know, DIFFERENT.  I made sure to hit him good.  The silenced 9's had a
real low muzzle velocity, since the fast bullets made a lot of noise, and
the silencers bled off some of the compression.  He'd had a vest on, but
I got him in the head once.  I hated shooting people in the head.  Modern
armor made it a necessity often, but I really hated it.  It made a big
mess, lots of blood.  The guy was dead, but the stuff was coming out like
a hose, all over those expensive bamboo floormats.  A pistol clattered on
the ground, making me feel better.  At least he HAD been armed.  God
alone knows how many perps I've dusted that had been going for a wallet
or a pack of smokes.

I heard the door start sliding closed.  I stepped through again, not
wanting to be stuck in there.  If I jammed it with my arm, it would
probably report an error to whatever computer controlled this place, and
someone would come up to fix it, so I had to let it close.  After we
cleaned up, we'd be able to kick the fucker down anyway.

Roberta had the plastic restraints on the surviving perp already.  She
took out a bioplastic gag -- it looked like a little green rubber ball --
and shoved it in his mouth.  It expanded right up when it touched the
saliva, filling his mouth and overflowing a little.

"Next door?" she whispered.  I nodded.

The perp on the floor wasn't too heavy.  We lifted him up, spun him
around -- he was as bonelessly limp, this early after the stun -- pressed
his face close the the retina scanner, and hit the SCAN button.
Recognized.  Have a nice day, sir.  The door slid open and I stepped in,
pistols out.  Heheheh.  Three guys in here, talking.  I thought about
arresting them, but fuck it...it would be too risky.  I started shooting
before they'd really acknowledged my presence, still using the silenced
nine millies.  The first fell back against the wall.  The second spun
away, landed on the desk, and did an acrobatic tumble off it.  I got him
in the head before he'd finished his roll.  The third stepped back twice,
as if refuting the fact that I'd shot him a few times.  He went for a
weapon.  Actually, he was just reaching under his jacket, but people
didn't reach for wallets in situations like this.  I kept shooting.  He
slumped back against the wall, above the first one, and fell down.
Craters were gouged out of the bricks by my bullets.  I smiled and looked
back.

"Room clear," I said.  I nodded at the fallen men.  "Resisting arrest."

"Right," said Roberta.

"Throw the perp in here.  We can just knock the door down when we're
finished."

She dragged him in and dumped him unceremoniously on the floor.  I patted
down the three corpses, found five pistols, and dropped them in my
satchel pack.  Evidence, plus I didn't want the bastard on the floor
getting them after we left.

We stepped back out before the door closed and started moving for the
staircase.  Downstairs first, then upstairs.

We crept down the stairs.  They were thick concrete, fortunately, not
much noise from them.  There was a big metal door at the bottom.  We ran
into a little surprise down there, too.  Before we'd opened the door, it
opened in on us.  Two more suits were there, apparently set on going
upstairs.  It didn't happen.  I got them both at point-blank, actually
putting the muzzles against their necks.  It killed one.  The other
landed, dropped his weapon, and looked pretty surprised.  I shot him in
the head.  So much for that.  I shut the door, popped the clips out of my
pistols, and reloaded.  They each had a few bullets left, but I didn't
want to chance it.  I expected some heavy shooting fairly soon, and
running out of bullets just plain sucked, even when you had more clips.

"Ready?" I whispered.  Roberta nodded.

We stepped out.  It was a wide, open hallway, with a few doors on either
side.  One at the far end, looked like the front door out onto the
street.  Potted plants on either side.  There was another suit there, his
back to us, watching one door very intently.  He was in a slight crouch,
pistol held up and ready with both hands.  He was preparing to plug
someone inside that room.  He hadn't even heard my shots, the bodies falling.

"FREEZE!  FBI!" I yelled at him.  He turned around, eyes wide.  Roberta
nailed him with the PAW.  It looked like a glittering blue streak,
although in reality it was more or less a ball that was fired.  The thing
blew right through him, holing the front door and doubtless blowing
another hole in the building across the street.  Little bits of burning
plastic and ceramic plate flew out from him in a miniature hurricane of
debris as he fell.  Personal armor didn't usually work too well against a
PAW, which was designed with tanks and APC's in mind.

I glanced at Roberta.

"He didn't freeze," she said, shrugging.

The door opened.  A suit stumbled out, spattered in blood.  I shouted for
him to freeze.  He pretty much ignored me, running our way, for the
staircase.  No weapon in hand, but he didn't freeze, right?  I dropped
him with a few shots.  Next out was another man, this one not in a suit.
He was dressed like one of those Asian gangsters we see so often, a short
Japanese guy.  Looked like a real mean customer.

"FBI!  FREEZE!" I shouted, feeling a little foolish at this point.  They
never froze anyway.  I got a better look at him for a moment, though.  He
was in sorry shape.  Belt undone, shirt ripped, and most of the left side
of his face was either blown away or torn off.  His shirt and jacket were
covered with blood, so much that I'd first assumed it was just red.  He
flashed me a grin and plunged through the opposite door, not bothering to
open it.  I took a few shots, saw a PAW blast flash by me through the
wall, but we probably didn't get him.  Oh, well.  What the fuck was in
that room, anyway?

"Follow him," I barked.  I holstered the two nines, whipping out the
tens.  We'd made enough noise to raise the dead anyway, and I was tired
of using BB guns when I had Howitzers at my disposal.  And they did make
a lot of noise...the shells were hypervelocity, armed by computer,
pressure-sensitive fuses on the charges inside.  When they hit something
hard, they just went off.  When they hit something soft, they waited a
moment before going off.  Even without the charges, they left some bigass
holes in people.  WITH the charges...well, I'll leave that to your
imagination.  Blowing off an arm or a leg isn't too hard.  I should
know.  I lost my arm to one of these bastards.  But hey, I had full
health coverage, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Roberta stopped in front of the smashed door, spraying a few shots
through before entering the room.  She brought new meaning to the term
"fire and forget."  I moved up and watched the door.  More people were
going to be coming out, I was sure.  I wasn't disappointed.  Another suit
came through, looking at the smashed door instead of me.  I didn't even
bother telling this one to freeze.  Fuck it.  I wasted him.  Only one
shot from either pistol this time, they cut right through his jacket and
vest.  POP-POP, and he fell down, little red droplets splattering the
walls like a balloon of red paint had been detonated there.  Something
small and hard thwacked the wall beside me.  It was red, and left a
similarly-red mark.  Probably a piece of bone.  These things really
did a number on people.

"Who's next?" I asked.  A woman ran out, small and Japanese, probably
only a secretary.  She certainly didn't look like a soldier.
Unfortunately, I have a bit of a soft spot for female perps, and they
usually talked to me anyway.  I shouted for her to freeze, that I was
indeed FBI, and if she didn't, I'd grease her like I'd greased those
other guys on the floor.  Surprisingly enough, she did, dropping to her
knees and lacing her fingers behind her head.  She knew the routine.  She
was crawling towards me, though...away from that door.

"I said FREEZE!" I yelled.  "You speak English?"

She kept crawling.

"FREEZE, ASSHOLE!" I shouted, cocking both pistols.  That got a reaction
out of her.  She stopped and dropped prone.

"What the hell is going on?" I asked, watching the door.

"Prisoner," she said, out of breath.  "Yoshi tried to rape her...she bit
his FACE off.."

"What?"  I glanced behind me.  I didn't hear anyone on the stairs.  Small
relief.

"The prisoner, they were going to kill her, she's REALLY PISSED OFF NOW,"
screamed the woman, burying her face in the floor.

I tossed her the restraints.  "Put those on.  I hear you moving around,
trying to cause trouble, I'm gonna make you wish you stayed in that
room."  I stepped over her as she put the things on, reaching down to
tighten both, then I looked at the door.  I heard something moving around
inside, a crash, and a shout.  I smiled.  Then I heard a gunshot.  Two of
them, in fact.  An invisible awl punched a hole through the door,
spraying me with little splinters.  Enough was enough.  These people were
really being assholes about being arrested.  I fired a few shots back
through the door, then sent in inward with a kick.  Well, not exactly.
The thing was riddled with bullets, and I had a cyberleg...I sort of put
my leg through it, shook it around, and more or less tore the door
apart.  I got out of the doorway pretty damn quick, though.  I heard
someone shoot through it a few times.  Yes, enough is enough.

"I'm FBI!" I called through.  "When I come in, you'd better be on your
hands and knees kissing your ass good-bye, because I am NOT in a good
fucking mood right now!"  I stepped through and fired a few shots.
Damn.  There was no one there to receive them.  It was a brick room,
pretty plain, trashed entertainment center in the corner, and a couch
against the wall.  The couch, which had originally been white, had a good
deal of red stains on it.  A lot.  I didn't think it was paint.  It had
had time to soak in, too.  My little salvo hadn't been responsible for it.

Well, there was no door to hide behind.  I stepped to either side of the
doorway to take in the whole room, then entered, pistols ready.  I was in
the mood to kick some ass.  SOMEONE was gonna get shot...that is, if I
saw anyone.  Where the hell were they?  There weren't any doors.  The
single window in the room was broken, but there were bars over it.  That
shooter would have to be pretty damn thin to wiggle through them,
assuming they weren't electrified.

I heard a soft thump behind me.

Now, Hollywood tells you that if you take something hard and heavy and
whack someone in the back of the head, they'll be knocked unconscious.
It's a great way to take the hero hostage, right?  But it's not like
that.  There are varying circumstances.  Sometimes you crack their head
wide open, sometimes you more or less squish it, and sometimes you just
knock them down and piss them off, like bumping your head on a doorjam.
The latter happens to me a lot in traditional Japanese dwellings, which
have lower doorjams than most Western ones, and I'm tall for a
Westerner.  Plus, I had some titanium in my skull.  Patched the holes
nicely, zero rejection factor, and it was a bit tougher than bone, too.

Well, I got smacked on the top of my head pretty good.  Fortunately I had
some titanium up there, but it still hurt like hell, gave me a nasty cut
(those scalp cuts are real bleeders, let me tell you), and knocked me on
my hands and knees.  I dropped one of the pistols.  They hit me again and
I lost the other.  THEN, as if that wasn't enough, they kicked me in the
ass to knock me down, and gave me another to roll me over.  I was looking
up, unarmed for the time being, at a very angry woman that I was familiar
with.  It was Jeniffer Rin, a.k.a. Jennifer Srin, a.k.a. Jetta.

She looked a lot healthier than I remembered, even in her condition.  Her
skin had lost that sickly pale shade it had before, and the circles under
her eyes were gone.  She was off the Lightning.  Small relief.  She had
some cuts and bruises.  A dark welt was underneath one eye, not quite yet
a bruise but getting there.  There was a good deal of blood on her face,
mostly around her mouth.  I mean, a lot of blood.  A lot on her shirt,
too, which was looking decidedly torn.  Her eyes were narrowed, and she
had a real handcannon aimed at me -- probably a .44 or something like
that, HUGE.  I was a little worried.

"Don't move," she said.  "You say you're FBI?"

"Hey, it's me," I said.  "Vic."  Her expression didn't change.  "Vic
Grandinetti.  Remember me?  Slick Vic?  Aw, come ON, Jetta."

"Vic?" she asked, still pretty pissed off.  "I don't know any Vics."

"VIC!" I said.  "I used to work for the corp, remember?  Me?  Huh?  Shit,
you were LIVING with me for a few months, Jetta."

"I've lived with a lot of people," she muttered.

"You look better.  Got clean?"

"Old news."  She watched me carefully.  "I still don't remember you Vic.
My brain's fucked, though, so it may be me and not you that's
responsible.  That's bad."

"Tell me about it," I groaned.

"So, Vic Grandinetti, you'd better help me remember, or you're catfood.
What makes you different from any other Vic?"

"Victoriano," I said.  "Not Victor.  Victoriano."

"Holy shit," she breathed.  She lowered the gun.  "I guess I do know
you.  Sorry about that, Vic."

"FREEZE!" screamed Roberta, stepping into the doorway.  Jetta's pistol
was back on me in a snap.  I swore.

"Fucking shit," I said.  "Roberta, back off, I know her.  Jetta, back
off, that's my partner."

"Partner?" asked Jetta.

"DROP THE FUCKING GUN!" shouted Roberta.

"Oh, FUCK YOU," said Jetta.  "I'll have six holes in this guy before you
pull the trigger.  You drop YOUR fucking gun and we'll talk."

"Drop it, Roberta," I said.

"What the fuck..." she spluttered.

"DROP IT, ROBERTA," I repeated.  Roberta lowered the rifle.  I turned to
Jetta.  "Jetta?"

"Shit."  Jetta stuck the pistol in her belt.  "This has really turned out
to be a fucked-up day, you know?"

I started to get up and put my hand on something I shouldn't have.  It
was a corpse.  I'd put my hand on its head, and the head had given way.
Nasty stuff.  I got up and stepped away from it.

"What the hell happened?" I asked.

"My good friend Yoshi shot me up on something and tried to take something
I wasn't offering," said Jetta, matter-of-factly.  She grinned.  Her
teeth were like shark's teeth, long and sharp.  She closed her mouth,
moved her tongue around, and spat blood on the floor.  She looked over at
me.  "Don't worry, it's not mine, it's his.  I bit the fucker."

"On his face?" I asked.  She nodded and pointed at the couch.  A large
flap of skin was beside it, almost underneath, covered in blood.  Very
nasty stuff.  There was a pool of something else entirely next to the mess.

"What the hell is that?" I asked, pointing at the puddle.

"After I bit him, I blew chunks," she said with an embarrassed smile.
"That was pretty gross, Vic."

"Where'd the perp go?" I asked Roberta.

"Lost him," she said.  "Went out the window."

"What the fuck?"

"Must've had something to cut the bars with.  Clean cuts through all of
them," said Roberta.

"Shit."  I shrugged.  "He looked like he knew something."

"We've got to go upstairs," said Jetta, suddenly getting a little more
active.  I watched her with interest.  Her eyes, which had been slightly
clouded, began to clear.  Her hands were shaking slightly.  I don't know
who the hell wired her up, but he put too much into her.  I was surprised
she looked as healthy as she did.  Those serious upgrades are notorious
for blowing out hearts and blood vessels prematurely...too much pressure,
unless you've got an upgraded circulatory system.  I didn't think she had
one, but she might've.

"And why is that?" I asked with a patronizing smile.  Of course we were
going to go up there.  We were going to go up there whether she wanted to
or not.

"The flyer's up there," she said.  "The crew...Yukio.  Yukio is up
there.  She'll know where Tierzha is."

"Who the hell are they?" I asked.

"And you're not going anywhere just yet," said Roberta, raising the rifle
again.  "We're questioning you.  We're government agents.  Don't make
this into a police brutality case, Jetta."

"Oh, will you PLEASE just CUT THE SHIT?" she snapped at Roberta.  "You
think you SCARE me with that rifle?  I was using those fucking PAWS
before you were born, pretty girl.  Step the fuck off before you get
stepped the fuck on.  You wanna know something, ask.  DON'T EVER FUCKING
THREATEN ME!"  And to prove the point, she snatched the rifle away like
it was a toy she wanted.  Roberta didn't say anything; her eyes just kind
of bulged, and she muttered something in whatever it was they spoke down
in South Africa, which I didn't understand.  It probably wasn't anything
good, though.

"And do something about that fucking hair," Jetta continued, flicking
Roberta's hair.

"The flyer's upstairs?  Rooftop?" I asked.

"No, it's in the playroom," she chuckled.  "Of COURSE it's on the roof.
At least, it was when they took me in here.  Yukio should be up there,
too, unless Yoshi warned 'em.  We've gotta get up there quick."

"How is Yukio important?" I asked.

"She's one of the heavy-hitter Yak assassins.  Real good, like Yoshi.  I
don't think she'll talk, but there'll be people up there that will.
We've got to MOVE, Vic.  Let's GO," said Jetta.

"Put these on," said Roberta, handing her a set of restraints.  "And give
me my rifle back before I get pissed."

Jetta grinned and handed the weapon back.  She took the two restraints
and eyed them cautiously, then looked at me.

"These guys, they see me, I'm dead," she said evenly.  "At least let me
take them on standing, huh?  Or armed?"

"Listen, bitch," said Roberta.  I held up a hand to quiet her.

"Hold on," I said, smiling at Roberta.  "We're talking to an experienced
hitwoman here, ex-military.  Used to be a 'Blazer, right, Jetta?"

"You know it," she said.

"Take your pick."  I tossed the satchel to her.  "Let me remind you, we
know what we're doing too.  You try to get away from us, we're gonna
waste you.  No threat, just fact."  I thought for a moment.  "Ummm...wait
a minute...someone told me Yoshi drugged you."

"It obviously didn't work too well if I bit the fucker, did it?" she
said, smiling.  She pulled one side of her jeans down a bit.  There was a
smooth, black plastic rectangle set flush with her skin.  "Biocomp.  It
took care of it."  She rummaged through the satchel and started sticking
pistols into her belt.  "Mind if I take them all?"

"Shit."  I chuckled.  "Just give me the bag back."  Of course, those
pistols were evidence, but we generally didn't need evidence.  We were
the SCU, right?  We knew who the bad guys were.  We did what needed to be
done.  Fuck evidence.

Back up the stairs.  This time, we didn't stop at the second floor.  Past
the third floor, too.  We'd get to that in due time.  We had to head up
to the roof, now.  I hoped the flyer wouldn't take off.  It was a
military model.  My pistols might put some dings in it at close range,
but if it got off the ground and started moving, I probably wouldn't hit
it, let alone hurt it.  Roberta had the PAW, which was nice, but who knew
what that thing would be carrying for weapons?

Last door.  End of the line.  I'd never seen the roof before.
Unfortunately, Jetta had, and she went right out the door like a rocket
before we could stop her.  The flyer was out in the middle, large, black
and squat, resting heavily on the textured asphalt surface.  Real rough,
with countless tiny teeth to grip the rubber of the wheels.  At least we
wouldn't have to worry about slipping, but to be honest, I'd really hate
to fall on that stuff.  Talk about an asphalt tattoo, this would be a
full-blown asphalt skin graft.

The flyer was running.  Someone HAD warned them, "them" being the suits
who were already up there, moving behind the flyer for cover.  The
thing's door was on the other side of it, away from us.  The bullets
started flying, and I did what any self-respecting Screw would do -- I
ducked down behind the nearest cover I saw, a concrete exhaust cylinder
for the building's air-circulation system, and put my head down for a
moment.  Little pieces of concrete and asphalt rained over me.  No
problem, I'd wait for them to take a break.  Roberta came out after me,
firing a few shots off from the PAW.  One hit the flyer, leaving a
blackened crater in the side.  They started shooting for her, a whole
bunch of POP-POP-POP pistol reports of varying pitches.  She went down,
rolled once, came to a stop in a prone position, and got the rifle up to
fire again.

The flyer was lifting off, just as I'd hoped it wouldn't.  Shit.  I
started looking for where the nasties would be.  I saw two of them, their
feet actually, but Jetta was running for them from the other side.  I
could shoot at them, but I had a definate chance of hitting her.  Not
because I was a lousy shot, but because she was right behind them -- my
bullets would go through them.  I looked over at the canopy.  Two guys
were inside, wearing helmets with the big VR goggles, standard piloting
gear, working frantically to get the flyer out of there.  I smiled and
started shooting.  POP-POP-POP POP POP-POP POP POP.  Ballistic plastic
canopy, the side turned opaque where I was shooting at it.  Fucking thing
was delaminating.  I tried just below, shooting for the metal.  I put
some holes in it, but they built those things with an armored bathtub
underneath the cockpit to soak up ground fire.  My tens weren't going to
go through that.

More good news.  There were two turrets underneath.  It'd been configured
for ground support when they'd purchased it, obviously.  The regular ones
only had one turret.  I wasn't expecting the weapons to still be under
there, but life's full of little surprises.  One was some kind of
minigun, with a BIG caliber.  Big enough to stick my thumb in; that was
too big to be on the receiving end of.  The other was just a straight
barrel with some armored power coils beside it.  A laser.  I switched my
eyes over to UV.  The world got flourescent.  You can't duck a laser
anymore than you can duck a bullet, but it pays to see where they're
shooting it.  The beams are generally invisible to the naked eye, and a
lot of the time you don't even know they're shooting at you until your
vest starts to boil.  That was usually an uncool position to be in.

And, in general Vic Grandinetti style, there was even MORE good news.
Jetta was hanging off the bottom by one hand, shooting a pistol up at the
door with the other.

"SON OF A BITCH!" I shouted.  "GET THOSE FUCKING TURRETS!"  I started
shooting at the minigun.  That worried me a lot more than the laser did.
It swivelled around at me like a big eye.  Shit.  I did more than duck
down.  I came as close to digging in as someone can do on asphalt.  I was
so low to the ground I could've taken cover behind a curb.  And when that
thing fired, it FIRED.  It started about halfway up, ripping the living
shit out of this poor concrete pipe, went left and right, then started
working down.  A single shot wouldn't have gone through the 'crete, I
don't think, but the thing's rate of fire was so high, it just sort of
ATE it down, like invisible termites.  When it cut it in half, the top
section collapsed and began to roll -- ("Oh shit, the fucking thing's
gonna fall on me...") -- and I started praying.  I was way too scared to
reach up and push it away, although my arm was strong enough to do so,
probably.  Whatever I reached up with, I would lose, and this was my
lucky arm.  I lucked out, though.  (Probably thanks to my arm.  I TOLD
you it was lucky.)  The top half fell off to the side, giving my feet a
scare but staying well away from the rest of my body.

"ROBERTA, WILL YOU PLEASE SHOOT THAT FUCKING THING?" I screamed.  And
pow, I heard the sound of the PAW firing, and the shower of concrete
particles stopped.  I looked up, curiosity overcoming my fear -- this was
gonna be a story I'd tell my grandchildren someday, and I wanted to get
it right.  She'd put a hole clean through the turret, and I could see
hydrolic fluid spurting out.  One thing about those military machines,
they had plenty of hydrolics.  The brass LOVED hydrolics.  It was like a
mantra to them:

We want hydrolics.

We NEED hydrolics.

Hydrolics are cool.

You suck if you don't use hydrolics.

The minigun, still firing like wild, was swinging slowly downwards as
pressure dropped.  It cut a swath a few inches wide across the roof.  I
heard more stone shattering and glass breaking as the visible devestation
moved out of sight, raking the side of the building.  And then, finally,
thankfully, it was shooting at the alley below.  Some genius in the flyer
had the intelligence to shut the fucking thing off before they hit
something important.

UV flashed by me.  I saw a bubbling streak of asphalt, perfectly
straight, right next to my foot.  I started running.  Fuck shooting the
thing, I'd start shooting when they stopped.  I skidded to a halt near
the edge of the building and started moving the other way, making sure
not to cross Roberta's line of sight.  I kept zigzagging.  It would make
it harder than hell for them to shoot me, but they'd get it eventually.
I was glad the laser they were using wasn't TOO good.  It overheated
after a second or two, so they had to keep turning it off and on.  Some
of the smaller military ones they have now, you can leave the thing on
and take a shower...it'll be nice and cool to the touch when you come
back out.

A PAW blast hit the turret, making a sound like a gong.  Nothing too
important severed this time; the laser hesitated, then started following
my movements again.  Then, suddenly, it switched over to Roberta.  She
started rolling sideways like a log, letting the rifle go.  Its first
shot missed, but she wouldn't roll too far before it nailed her.  I took
aim with one pistol.  This counted.  I lined the smartgun crosshairs up
on the barrel.  The rangefinder kicked in automatically and a new, faded
crosshair appeared.  THAT'S what I wanted to aim at.  It was a bit higher
than my original one.  The target was moving, which fucked things up a
bit, but I took a shot at it anyway, pardon the pun.

I hit the barrel itself.  It splintered.  They held off on the following
shot.  Good for them.  I hit it a second time in one of the power coils.
It didn't look like I got through the armor, which was pretty pathetic --
the armor wasn't too thick there.  I tried again.  Bingo, that one went
through.  I saw sparks.  I gave it a third.  Missed the fucking flyer
entirely.  The fourth time, I shot high, put a dent in the armor,
complete with the bright flash as the bullet exploded.  It looked almost
like one of those 2-d WWII videos of aerial dogfights I love watching so
much, the way the bullets explode when they hit and you see those little
flashes of light.

Fifth time.  Five's a charm.  I blew out the other coil.  No more coils,
no more laser.  Not that I was THAT worried about them firing it.  Firing
a laser with a fucked-up barrel is a gamble.  Sometimes, it fires just
fine.  Sometimes, it burns up a little bit of the damaged section, and
again, fires just fine.  And SOMETIMES, you get problems, like if it was
knocked out of alignment and you didn't know it, and then you wonder
where the hole in the floor came from when you fired it.  Well, now there
was no doubt whatsoever, and my personal kill tally now included a laser,
a first for me.

"You okay?" I called to Roberta.  She was already on her feet, limping
back to where she'd dropped the PAW.  She snatched it up and frowned.

"That bitch is still hanging on the side," she groaned.  "Shoot anyway?"

"Yeah, but try not to hit her."  I watched anxiously.  The flyer was now
some distance away, picking up speed and altitude.  Roberta started
firing.  She got the minigun with a good one, smashing it up and causing
a nice secondary explosion as the ammo belt started going off.  That stopped
quick, though.  The military flyers have failsafes for that, closes off the
ammo feed when the bullets start going so it doesn't destroy the whole thing.
She hit the side twice.  If that did anything to it, we didn't notice.
She got a thrust nozzle, and the flyer started wobbling a bit.  Computer
would take care of that soon enough, but it looked nice.  She hit it
twice in the ass, putting a hole through one of the fins and probably
damaging one of the turbines -- it started smoking.

"Hit it AGAIN," I said, egging her on.

"Come off of it," she said, pointing beyond.  I squinted.  There were
skyscrapers in the distance, on the far side of the flyer.

"Miles away," I said.

"And well within range," she added, smiling.  "And we'll get in trouble
for THAT.  Don't worry about it.  I've got it under control."

"Track 'em with the computer?" I asked.

"Not necessary.  I got a tracer on her when she took my rifle," she said,
grinning wickedly.  "I thought she was gonna run off on us."

"Nice going," I said, patting her on the shoulder.

"Why do you think I gave up the PAW so easily?" she asked, raising her
eyebrows.

I looked at her.  There were three bullet holes in her jacket.  Vest
stopped those, most likely.  There was one in her leg, but I saw some
blood.  Armor hadn't stopped that one.

"You okay?" I asked.

"Just a graze.  We've gotta get following these guys."

The door back to the building opened up.  Ahhh, shit.  Not too much for
cover up there anymore, either.  I sort of pulled Roberta along behind
me, throwing both of us down behind what was left of the pipe.  We had to
crouch down pretty low, though.  It hadn't been that high to begin with.

I peeked up with the guncam.  There were a bunch of them.  The residents
of the building were justifiably a little pissed off at having a minigun
cutting pieces out of the side.  If they hadn't been shooting at us so
much, I might have tried explaining to them that we weren't directly
responsible for that, but these guys don't listen to reason all that
well.  How many times had I told them to freeze already and had them try
to pull something?

"How many?" asked Roberta.

"A lot."  I lobbed a grenade over the pipe with a hook throw.  If I'd had
the balls to stand up and throw, I would've hit them.  But, I didn't, and
I didn't.  It was my observation that balls and intelligence are directly
related to each other in a linear equation: a normal person's actions are
based on 50% balls, 50% intelligence.  As you lost balls, you gained
intelligence, and vice versa.  I was a little prejudiced towards the
balls end of the spectrum, but not THAT prejudiced, which was why I'm
still alive.

If I HAD stood up to throw, I could've demonstrated a very nice piece of
hardware I have.  A system of hardware, actually.  I've got a little
section of computer power reserved for throwing things.  It takes
EVERYTHING into account -- wind speed and direction, range, elevation,
weight of the projectile, how I'm planning on throwing the projectile, my
build, and my throwing technique.  It's wired into my cybernetic arm, my
left one.  I'm right-handed, but this is okay, since this system takes
over completely for the duration of the throw.  It's like I'm left-handed
when I throw something, right-handed whenever I do anything else.  And it
DOES work, too.  I've tested it extensively.  Very nice.  And the guys at
Sons of Italy can't understand why I throw horseshoes so well at the picnics.

"I think we're gonna have to bug out, Roberta," I said.

"Maybe."  She leaned around to fire.  The shooting at us intensified,
covering me with even more powdered concrete.  I looked like a
construction worker.  She leaned back and spat out some more dust.
"Yeah, that might be a good idea.  What were you planning?"

"Over the side," I said with a grin.

"Three stories?" she asked.

"You got a better idea?" I asked.

"Yeah.  Throw some more grenades," she said.  "Stand up this time.  I'll
cover you."

Yeah, right.  Well, who wants to live forever?

I'll tell you what, though.  I've never come up to my feet and dropped so
quickly before in my life.  It was truly amazing to behold.  It was like
I'd dropped before I'd even been on my feet, but I rose so quickly, I
almost jumped.  I barely saw the grenade leave my hand, let alone where
it landed, but when it went off, I heard some screams.  I poked up the
guncam.  Bits and pieces of suits were sprayed across that section of the
roof, with a few still in one piece, maybe two of them still alive.

Arrests look nice on your record, but I wasn't feeling good right now.

POP-POP-POP-POP-POP.  There WERE two of them alive, but now there was
only one.  POP POP.  Scratch that.

"We've GOT to get out of here," I said, watching the flyer, off in the
distance.  A black dot fell off it...a black dot with arms and legs that
flailed around.

"That Jetta?" asked Roberta.  I watched carefully.  Magnification time.
It wasn't Jetta.  Some other guy, one of the suits.

"No," I said, chuckling.

"It's a terrible thing to be tossed from a flyer," said Roberta plainly.

"I'll bet."

"They scream all the way down," she said.

"That's nice to know."

"Sometimes they keep screaming after they land," she continued.

"Dammit, can we change the subject?" I asked.  "Let's get the fuck out of
here before they try that again, assuming there are more guys down there
that're alive."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Where they headed?" I asked nervously, watching the road ahead and
fighting the steering wheel a little bit.  I'd been wrong about kids not
fucking with the car.  They'd spraypainted the hell out of it, which
wasn't a problem, it had No-Stik paint on it.  The spraypaint wiped right
off.  The real problem was, though, that the swaying flyer's minigun had
put a few holes through it.  I didn't know exactly what that entailed,
not being a mechanic, but it was having trouble steering...there was a
strong pull to the left.  The continuously-variable transmission was a
little funny, too.  The shift lever only moved about three-quarters
down.  Odd.  Something was busted up under there, I could hear it
clinking.  Oh, well.  It was an SPD car anyway, not like WE had to fix it.

"Airport," said Roberta.  "I don't know where they were going before, but
they're running hard for the airport now.  They'll beat us by a few
minutes.  That is, unless the traffic gets worse."

"Yeah."  I flipped on the siren and lights.  The siren and lights gave me
special abilities, as an agent of the law.  I now had permission to knock
your ass out of the way if you didn't move it.  I had permission to go
the wrong way on one-way streets, and again, if you didn't yield to me, I
made you yield.  People feared cars with a siren and lights.  I hoped it
would make me some time.

I heard a buzz on the roof as the lightbar folded up into place.  We were
now ready to go.

It was now time to see what this car could really do.

Actually, the trip was kind of fun.  I only hit a few cars, managed to
evade the pedestrians when they didn't evade me.  I took out a planter,
one of those thick concrete ones, which surprised me.  A taxi pulled out
in front of me at some point and I really hammered him, knocking him
completely off the road, onto the sidewalk, and off the side of a
building.  His rearend was totalled, so he wouldn't be bothering anyone
else.  I surprised myself with my driving ability, too.  At one point, I
hung a corner a little too quick, slid off violently towards the outside
of the turn...and managed to smack another car, stopping my own slide and
knocking him off the road at the same time.  I'd seen it done during
races, but I'd never actually done it myself, you know, so I was kind of
pumped up.  And the guy driving the other car looked REALLY pissed off.

"Which part of the airport?" I asked.  The airport wasn't too far ahead.
The driving was getting trickier now; a lot of the traffic was buses this
close to SeaTac, and I couldn't exactly ram them.  Well, I could -- I DID
-- but it didn't have the desired effect, believe me.

"North satellite, near the JAL terminals," she said.  I nodded.

"I'm gonna see if we can't get this baby onto the tarmac," I said.  "I
don't like running long distances."

"Neither do I," she added.  The seat beneath her left thigh was stained
with blood.  Not an unbelievable amount, but definately noticable.  It
was still bleeding.

"Have they landed yet?" I asked.

"Any second, emergency landing," she said, watching the monitor.  "Wonder
why it's an emergency, we only shot them a few times."

I smiled.  "Roberta, where the hell do we pull the car in?"

"Fuck it," she said.

I pulled up to a halt outside the JAL entryway, nonchalantly rearending a
limo and pushing it out of the way.  I wanted a better spot, and dammit,
I was the man.  I DESERVED a better spot.

"You motherfucker!" cried the limo driver, stepping out and shaking his
fists.  He spoke very bad English and wore a turban.

"Fucking kaffir," muttered Roberta, swinging the PAW around.  I didn't
know what a kaffir was, but I only heard her use it when referring to
minority races.  Evidently, they used that term alot in South Africa when
referring to the blacks.  Not ALL white Praetorians were racist, but
Roberta was.  The limo driver screamed and leaped back into the car,
pulling out out a little too quickly and taking a taxi broadside.  The
people milling around, carrying their luggage, either gaped and stared or
ran and screamed.  The split was about fifty-fifty.  I'd love to hear a
sociologist's explaination for this phenomena sometime.

"Okay, FBI!" I shouted, holding up my badge for all to see.  "GET DOWN
AND STAY DOWN!"

Five or six people got down, albeit reluctantly.  They got back up after
we left.  People, on the whole, did not usually listen to the FBI.

As I ran, I called up a schematic of the airport.  My RAM had no problem
with a single display.  I enlarged the section we were in.  The north
satellite was at a different part of the airport -- we'd have to take
that damn transit thing, whatever it was.

We felt a little foolish, actually, standing on this thing, bristling
with guns.  The poor travellers around us kept their distance,
understandably enough.  There was a security guard on it who got a little
nervous when we entered, but the badges shut him up.

A woman's voice, computer-toneless, spoke over the intercom, informing us
in English, German, Chinese, Japanese, French, and Siamese that we were
at the north satellite.  We got off.

There was a checkpoint up ahead for baggage inspection, complete with the
body scanners and image-recognition stuff.  Two heavily-armored guards
and a technician were there.  All of them were looking at us with mouths
wide in disbelief.

"FBI," I said, flashing the badge.  We jogged past, setting off a whole
bunch of bells and alarms.  The three of them watched us pass, still in
shock.  They didn't say a word the whole time.

"Hey," I said, as we trotted through the surprised crowds of commuters
walking about the terminals.  "How 'bout calling for backup again?"

"Already did," said Roberta, limping a little worse.  I had to slow my
pace.  "Still unavailable.  Like these cops have something better to do."

We ran into one of the docking bays, moving past a very surprised-looking
service clerk who managed to do little more other than shouting, "Hey!
You're not allowed in there!"  He didn't chase us, though.  There was no
plane at the other side, which is why I picked this one out.  All there
was was a rather long drop down to the tarmac at the end of it.  No
problem for me.  I leaped right out, landed, rolled, and came up still
smiling.  I watched Roberta with concern, though.

"Hang on the edge with your hands and drop," I said.  "I'll catch you."
Sounded like a good idea at the time.  She swung over and dropped.  I
caught her, all right.  Caught her elbow right on top of my head, which
hurt like hell and opened my little cut back up.  I set her down and
looked around, starting to get angrier.

There were a lot of small vehicles around, some for transportation, some
for loading and unloading various items, some for refueling, some for
refitting, and a few that I had no ideas about.  I looked out in all
directions.  Many planes were taxing back and forth across the runways,
some coming in, some going out, others waiting, a few actually
accelerating for the takeoff.  One of them was moving our way -- probably
on its way to unload passengers.  No wonder there were no vehicles right
in our immediate viscinity.

I heard a clunk behind me.  A heavy loading robot was standing there,
low, squat, solid, arms that looked like a forklift.  A small camera-like
eye on its shoulder regarded me with typical robotic indifference.

"You are unidentified," said the robot.  "Please stay here until security
arrives.  If you are injured, we are not liable.  Please stay here until
security arrives."

"FBI," I said, holding up the badge.  I put it right in front of the eye,
watching as little red laser dots scanned it for authenticity.

"Clearance acknowledged," said the robot.  "Have a nice day, sir."  It
stumbled on, ungainly and powerful, to what must've been its waiting
position away from the terminal.  Vehicles were approaching -- not
security, just workers.  I smiled.

One of the transports pulled up, a small electric three-seater.  Two men
were on it in bright orange safety vests, clad in jeans, tshirts, and
backframes for heavy lifting.  They, too, looked a little surprised to
see us.

"Grandinetti, FBI," I said, holding up my badge as they stopped.  That
thing was really getting a workout today.  "This is agent Van Der Veen.
How's it going?"

"Holy shit, we in trouble?" asked one, smiling nervously.  A fuel truck
was pulling up.

"Not at all.  You seen a flyer land recently?  Black, big, damaged?" I
asked.

"Right over there, Hangar Five," he said, pointing further down the
airport.  "It came in kind of hard, damaged the landing gears I think.
We had to tow it."

"We're going to have to commandeer this vehicle," I said.

"Hey, sure...you're gonna have to sign for it or something, though, I
think," said the man.

"No problem," I said, smiling.  "We'll sign for it as soon as we bring it
back, but this is pretty important, you know?  Tell your boss we took it,
but ask him not to come down...we're going to have to apprehend some
people, don't want any civilians around."

"Um...okay," he said.  He motioned to the other guy, and they climbed out.

I smiled again.

"You ready?" I asked, watching Roberta.

"Ready as I'll ever be," she said.

I put the accelerator to the floor, hoping for a little tire spin, but I
was disappointed.  Didn't matter, though.  The SCU was here.  We were
bad, we were pissed, and we were gonna kick some ass, tire spin or no
tire spin.